Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Two Baptisms and a Move

Queridos amigos e familiares,

Merry Christmas!
I'm so excited to speak with you all on Christmas Day! Well at least my familia that is, to the rest of you I hope you have a great Christmas full of lots of good memories. I will be calling home at 4
o'clock MST.

This past week has been super busy. We haven't had much time to do any finding, so sorry for the lack of cool finding stories.



Big things that happened this week:

Portuguese lessons! We had lots. We have a family in our branch who is on fire as far as missionary work goes. Yesterday they gave us 8 Book of Mormons to give out to their Portuguese speaking friends with all their addresses! We contacted a few yesterday and we ended up having good lessons with them. One of the families we met even invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner with all their friends! 

We're gradually starting to pick up more words. Hopefully I can learn it before I go home! It's been really fun, I feel like I'm a new missionary learning the language again. We have an RM from the singles branch who had been helping us out, it's like being in a trio, it's great!


We moved apartments. Yes, we are now the newest residents at Huntington Place. Our WML and his daughters (our BFFs) helped us move. It took a while but we're finally in! We're super happy in our new place. Cleaning the old apartment took a while but walls that I never thought would be clean of scuffs again are now a brilliant white.

One of our members died of a heart attack! Tuesday night after getting in we called our WML to do nightly follow up and he told us the tragic news that one of the less-actives we had been visiting had died. First thing the next day we went over to provide support to the husband and daughter. The funeral was yesterday. It was very beautiful. 

Being a missionary has changed my view on death so much. I've always known that this life is not the end, but having learned what I have on the mission it was easier to feel that Patricia really wasn't gone, just progressing on to a new life. Her presence was very strong during the whole service.


Due to the death, one of our baptisms for Saturday got pushed back to this week. However we did have two baptisms Saturday! Allan Bizzaro and Emily Chuc. They are both really happy to be baptized. It was fun to have so much family around to celebrate.

We learned that we are the sister training leaders for this transfer so you can expect lots of exchange stories to come, it should be great! It's Sister Paulsen's first time being a leader.

For Christmas we will be giving out gifts and visiting with everyone we know. Lots of people here are eager to have the missionaries over for the holidays. I love this branch so much, it will be a lot of fun!

Cariños,
Hermana Mathis





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