Dear Family and Friends,
Happy Valentines Day!

To start this weeks email, I would just like to say thank you to every member of my family for writing me! I loved your personal letters! I will try to write you each back personally... one day.

Every week of the mission has a theme it seems. The theme this week for me was Family. We've seen some miracles as we've taught family members of our ward members. It's amazing how the gospel brings the family together and builds it up and makes it stronger. :) This is why I feel so blessed to have all of you as part of my family or for those of you who are friends as part as my chosen family. Here are just a few stories from the past week:

This past Tuesday was Jose's birthday (recent convert). We made him a cake and took it over to his house. The sad thing though is that Jose wasn't even there. We decided it was a shame to have gone all the distance to see him and not talk with anybody, so while we waited for him to get back, we talked with his brother and mom who have both been really come-offish towards us. We didn't teach, but we explained to them our missionary purpose. 

Jose never showed up, so we had to leave without giving him his cake. However we came back the next day and he was there. We asked his family to come in and sing to him for his birthday. I think that was the first time in a long time his whole family has been together for more than a minute. They all congratulated him and joined in eating the cake. It's kind of amazing the way the Lord works, I think that day his mother truly accepted us. 

Just last night we went back and watched the Testaments with her and with Jose. She sat stiff as a rock the whole time, her face was sometimes angry, contemplative, or confused. At the end we testified, and then the water-works began. She completely opened up to us! She shared with us a dream she had about 2 young people coming to see her in white and bringing her a book! She was like "I think it's the bible, but they never said bible!" Obviously at this point, me and Hermana Duong are FREAKING OUT!! We're thinking, "There's two of us! We have the Book of Mormon! It supports the Bible!" 

We testified and testified and testified! Finally we could no longer testify because it was time to go home. To finish, we asked her to say the prayer. It was beautiful. For the first time EVER in all the time we've known her, she accepted our invitation to meet again!!! We may have walked away from that house in silence, but you can bet we were squealing in the car! Haha, we think next time we will show up in all white :) 

We also started teaching a new investigator named Manny. He's really excited to be learning about the gospel! I think we blew his face off when we told him Christ had come to the America's, haha. He turned to his mom, who is a member, and was like, "Mom did that really happen?" She was like "Si! Va estar bautizado?" (Yes, are you going to be baptized?) She gave him the baptismal commit before we even got the chance to! Wow! He didn't say yes. He avoided her question because he was freaking out, but he is taking this seriously and he's already come to church! He says he wants to come to both the English ward and the Spanish ward! Haha, I walked away from that lesson thinking, "Is this real? Did that really just happen?" I'll let you know what happens next week, I guess. :)

This coming week we are getting our iPads (wahoo!) and we're already on Facebook, so I guess you could say we're getting with the times now. I'm really excited to start teaching with the iPad. I'll let you know how it goes!

Have a good week, keep praying! Live the gospel. You will be blessed because of it, I know it!

Sincerely,

Hermana Mathis