¡Feliz año nuevo!

Dear Family/Friends,

¡Feliz año nuevo! (Happy New Year!)

I hope everyone had a great new year. I know I did! It's hard to believe my blackout year is over! It went by SO fast! But lots of great things happened, I'll always be grateful to Heavenly Father for 2014. I've learned so much, so much has changed. I've come to love a new place, new people, and a new way of living obedient to Gods commands. Truly I have been blessed :) I'm so grateful to all of you for always supporting me, your one of the greatest blessings of all in my life.

This week was stellar! We had so many fun adventures. We did two exchanges back to back, one with the Bradenton hermanas and one with the University Park sisters. I went to both of their areas while Hermana Paulsen stayed here. Our zone has some of the greatest sisters ever, they're each very diligent and full of the spirit.

In Bradenton we had some success going around asking absolutely everyone for referrals. We received a referral from a woman to go see her friend Silvia. As it turns out Silvia is super interested and lives across from the church! 

In University Park we set a date with one of their investigators who has been struggling and we went to a New Year's Eve party. It was a blast! 

When I got back to our area, I was surprised to find that we had two new solid investigators, and about 20 new potentials. In other words, I love exchanges! 

This week has been a week of amazing lessons. Sister Paulsen and I were super bold and had to drop a couple people but we also set 2 dates and had more people at church than we have had in a long time. 

Due to our recent success with the older generation, we've decided maybe it's just best we only teach people over 55. We have a new investigator named Eugene who has already read the Book of Mormon and even fought to come to church with us! He's just the cutest little old man you've ever met. 

Eladio and Luz

Eladio and Luz (the sibling-in-laws of Pedro, our recent convert) have officially declared to just about everyone (and anyone who will listen to them) that they are going to be baptized on the 31 of January! I'm so exited, I consider them to be my own great grandparents! 

For New Years I went to a party with Sister Larsen on our exchange. We ate and talked with all the member's friends. We didn't watch the ball drop but we had fun anyway. The family we were celebrating with has an outside pool and about half the guests were swimming, in December! It's a completely different world out here. Haha! 

We ended our week with mission leadership training and were able to go up to Tampa with Sister Trebotitch and Ray. I love those sisters! It was an inspiring training, I am so ready to just give everything over to God. I can already tell this is going to be one of the best years of my life. 

Well that's it for the week! 

Con Amor,

Hermana Mathis

P.S. Funny/awkward story. Before every lesson we say a prayer in our car and the other day while I was with Sister Gibson in Bradenton some random person came up to our car and got in while we were praying! Haha! They thought we were their friends, it made for the greatest conversation...