From Largo with Love On My Birthday

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you all for all the love and support! Thanks to everyone who contributed to my birthday package!!! It's been a great day so far!

Indian Rocks Area

Blustery day on the bridge

I wanted to start this weeks email with something a bit more spiritual because I normally just jump into the week without sharing how much it really means to me to be out here on the mission.

This year in general conference, Elder Neil L. Anderson talked about the nature of the Latter Day Saints. He said:

"In nature, trees that grow up in a windy environment become stronger. As winds whip around a young sapling, forces inside the tree do two things. First, they stimulate the roots to grow faster and spread farther. Second, the forces in the tree start creating cell structures that actually make the trunk and branches thicker and more flexible to the pressure of the wind. These stronger roots and branches protect the tree from winds that are sure to return.⁴  

You are infinitely more precious to God than a tree. You are His son or His daughter. He made your spirit strong and capable of being resilient to the whirlwinds of life."

I am so grateful to have a loving Heavenly Father who created me strong enough to resist evil and carry on during the hardest times. I feel so blessed to see this amazing change taking place in others.

Sick with colds

We had several great lessons this week, despite having colds half the week. We taught Ema about the restoration again and she said that she wanted to come to the English ward (because she lives 5 min. away and can't make it to the Spanish Branch) even though she can't understand it because she wants to feel the spirit. She says she feels it every time we're there.

We found another dolphin!

Elouisa and Juan came to church! Yay!! We're so happy. We had a great lesson with them earlier this week about keeping the Sabbath day holy. I can really see them striving to live God's commandments, it's wonderful.

Last week when we taught them about prayer I told them how when I was younger I put tape on the doorknob to remember to pray before I left the house and then this week as we were leaving I noticed they had tape wrapped around their doorknob... coincidence? I think not!

We're really starting to work with the Seminole ward a bit more. It's exciting and a little strange. I am not used to speaking with members and investigators in English. We went to the Relief Society activity on Wednesday and although we didn't have any of our investigators there, we met a potential and each of the English sisters had investigators there, it was a great success!

Thursday we went to the park because we had a couple hours to do finding and when we get there, we see one of the Seminole sister's investigators. He works at the little kiosk-thing there and told us that if we wanted, we could ride some of the cool 2-people bikes!! "Missionaries ride free." Yup, those are my sisters, creating a good name for the church and missionaries everywhere. He also gave us free cookies and told us to have at it!

Biking in the park is a blast!

We chose the cherry red tandem car. It was a blast! And an excellent way of contacting, I might add. Lot's of people were interested merely because we were two girls in skirts...on a two person bike car.  Funnest day ever! 

Then on that note, we were up in Clearwater walking to our car from a recent converts house and we see this guy we had run into two times before and he gave us free treats from his supply truck because he is the person who stocks all the tiendas. It's amazing how as a missionary sometimes it feels like the world hates you and then other times it's like the whole world adores you! :)

The sweets that our new best friend Roberto gave us!

For my birthday so far, we had a bit of cake for breakfast, I opened my package, cleaned the apartment, went for a run and had Chilis.

I got the package!

Hermana was trying to light the match for my cake and dropped them all over the floor. Haha!

Me cutting my cake...dramatically

For my Birthday, Hermana Holloway took me out to Chilis because she had a gift card. We had lots of fun just talking and eating some yummy food. We were surprised to find that some new inventions have come out while we have been on the mission.

Hope you all enjoy your week!

Love,

Hermana Mathis