¡Feliz Dia de la Muerte! (Happy Day of Death!)

Actually the day of dead won't be until next week but we are definitely getting a bit of the action aqui (herein). Every night and 5 in the morning, several "bombas" go off. Actually they are fireworks and this time they are huge! It's like the stadium of fire all around the CCM!

Familia y Amigos (Family and Friends),

Thank you for all you support and for your emails! Things are getting pretty darn crazy at the CCM! It's finally our last week here. I say finally but what I really mean is, I can't believe how fast it's come! Last night we said goodbye to our sister trainers and we also took on the role of being the oldest hermanas here.

Our sister trainers left this week. We were so sad!
Good luck in Oregon and California girlies!

Last week was a really good week though I learned so much. I've decided that my strength is understanding Spanish not speaking it. We've been working a lot more with our new investigators.  My newest investigator is named Estefan and he has just agreed to baptism but he's very afraid of what his protestant/buddhist family will think. Lessons are going really well. This week Hermano Flores taught a lesson in all English even though he doesn't know hardly any and it really calmed our nerves because even though he knew very little the spirit was about him and the message was conveyed really well.

Elder Smith's Birthday Surprise!

Awe, what a cute DL!

We are officially trend setters at the MTC, mi companera and I, porque (because) we dressed alike one day and then after that every [companionship] started dressing alike. Also we are crafty genius's porque (because) it was our DL's birthday this week and we decorated his desk and made him a cake (with what we had) and several other cool things which I will send a picture of. Tambien (also) our whole district got Mexico jerseys this week. Woot! Woot! 

Jerseys! So happy about these.

Another cool thing that happened was today while we were checking the mail and such one of the administrators came up to us and asked us if we would do a photo shoot for the MTC, so I guess that kind of makes us models. Haha, the guy said we had a future in it. The pictures will be displayed at every devotional from now on, cool right!? So glad my companion looks good so she can distract people from me ;)

Our youngest district. They're so sweet!

Days are going by super fast. I love reading the scriptures in what time I do have. I feel like Nephi when he writes,"my soul delighteth in the scriptures..." 2 Nephi 4 I want to say verse 16? I think of all the things I've learned, done, and tried to feel the spirit the scriptures bring it the fastest. Our teacher challenged us to read it solomente en Español (only in Spanish) without a dictionary or anything. At first I thought it would be hard but I actually understand pretty much everything I read. Now if I could only speak it. I really don't have much more to say other than it's been great here and I will miss it, I will miss my companion and I will miss my hermanas. May the Lord be with you always.

Con Amor (with love),

Hermana Mathis

The Angels in Gods Army from our zone.

Mothzillas and Failed Attempts to be Impress Nuestro Maestros

¿Comó le va familia y amigos? [How is family and friends?]

Woohoo for the beginning of week 5! Alrighty, so where to begin? This past week has been a speeding bullet! I can´t believe it´s over!

Well I guess I will begin with saying yesterday we took on the challenge to speak solomente Español the whole day, and we plan to continue it the whole week pero es muy dificil! [but it is very difficult] (so hard). It truly is a humbling experience to try to speak it all the time. Haha, we heard a talk from Elder Christofferson yesterday explaining his first impression of Spanish when he was trying to learn it. He said, "Babies knew more Spanish than I did! DOGS knew more Spanish than I did!" Haha, that made me laugh so hard because I feel exactly the same, hearing it is one thing but speaking it? That is a whole ´nother challenge.

Me and Hermana Brough in Class

It seemeth me good to explain the title of this email before I dip too far into my very funny and extremely spiritual week. The bugs here are huge! They have these mosquito looking flies that they call mosquito hawks because they eat mosquitos but boy are they big! They are like the size of our heads! Also they have these moths that are big and brown and look like bats flying around. I don´t mind them I just thought they were birds at first.

As for trying to impress our teachers... yeah, that didn't blow over too well. Primero mi compañero [first my partner] told our teacher to "susurro sus ojos" which directly translates to "whisper your eyes". Haha but I guess that´s not any stranger than me saying "sientense sus ojos" which means "sit your eyes." Haha, so after much trial we finally figured out the right word but this was only the beginning of our failed attempts to teach our teachers.

Me and Hermano Osorio

So let me just start by saying that our teacher taught us how to give chapel tours this week. So from our lesson we drew the conclusion that we should give our investigators in el CCM tours of the chapel. Little did we know on the day that we decided to execute this idea that they were having orientation classes in the capilla. Entonces [then] here we are con nuestro [with our] investigator trying to give him a tour and all the while he´s like, "no no no!" We just thought he was confused as to where the chapel was, little did we know he didn't want us to go there. So we say ¡esta bien! [right!] and we walk him to the door of the chapel and we open it up and lo and behold they are having orientation. It was really embarrassing! All the other teachers were looking at us like we were some freak show! At this point the spirit had taken flight. And our teacher/investigator, not wanting to break character, asks who one of the teachers is. We tell him it´s a teacher and he tells the teacher flat out to his face, "Oh what a small teacher!". I about died on the inside! We quickly tried to recover our mistake by taking him back but by then the damage had been done. In the end though the other teachers were really impressed, so I guess it was okay.

Yup, there's a gold statue of a guy in a speedo just outside of the CCM!

BTW, I thought I´d throw this in here. I´m senior companion and a Hufflepuff according to the elders in our distrito. Sometimes they get so off topic! It´s madness trying to keep them on topic! We actually had to have a meeting with all the sisters to talk about how we could help the elders in our branch focus. However the whole ordeal turned into a girls camp testimony meeting. If you haven´t been to one that means that there were more tears shed than words said.

Our "Besties" left this week, we're so excited for them!
Good luck Hermana Whipple y Hermana Freeman!

I've learned a lot pertaining to the gospel this week, all simple truths about missionary work. It never ceases to amaze me how the Lord works in such simple ways. We listened to a talk given by Elder Holland this week. He talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon in teaching investigators and also how important it is to not come back the same missionary you came in as. His talk was like a slap in the face. But seriously, I hope that I come home a better person, and I hope that when I come home you will all be better people. I know several of you are on missions or considering missions, pero [but] I think this call is given to all people. Be better people than you were yesterday. I would like to invite you all to share the gospel where you're at. This work extends far beyond missionaries. This work is not soley intended for non-members or even for less active members. Reach out to ALL people, build each other up. We are the hope for the world, faithful members. I've changed my motto. My motto is now, " I can, I will and I wont give up!" My desire is that you would think likewise, because you can preach the gospel, you will be successful, and we wont give up until this work is through.

I love you all, I look forward to seeing you again in 17 months!

Con Amor de Mexico(with love from Mexico),

Hermana Mathis

¡Beunos Tardes Familia y Amigos!

Me and Hermano Flores y Mi Premero Dia

Ok, so I´m trying this new thing where I write my big letter first so that I can say all that I want to. First of all, how great was conference yeah? I loved it! I've never taken more notes in my life. My favorite for all of you to know is Deiter F. Uchtdorf´s talk, Come unto Christ.  I think that's what it´s called... I haven´t looked at it yet in written form. General Conference was a great break from Spanish.  We watched the whole thing, including Music and the Spoken Word in English. But General Conference certainly wasn't the only spiritual experience I've had this week. Yesterday we taught our investigator Mario, who has bone cancer and whose wife is cheating on him and the Spirit was super strong. I felt it guiding me to say all that I needed to in Spanish and although it was probably bad grammar it was perfect!  I love teaching I wish I did it more, I can't wait for the mission field! Also I sang in the choir for the devotional this week! We sang a variation of I am a Child of God in Spanish. It was beautiful. The elders in nuestro distrito are such good tenors!

Moving Casas - Sad Day!

Decorations in our bedroom

This week we had to move casas! :´(  We think the Lord is just trying to humble us because our new casa doesn't have an iron and our room and closets are smaller. And just when we thought we had the washing machines to ourselves too! We also have two new wonderful American roommates, they are hilarious! Their names are Hermana Michael and Magnuson. I love them but I will admit they are REALLY messy. 

Our two favorite sisters Herman Wipple and Freeman

Another monumental thing that happened this week was I memorized the first vision and the 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th articles of faith all in Spanish! I can’t carry on a conversation but I can say what I believe! We told our NATIVE profesora where we were going and the people we would be talking  to and her exact words were, "Oh hermanas! They are fast! So fast! I can’t even understand them." So that was a little discouraging yet we are pressing forward. We’ve been trying to talk to some Latinos every day lately, it´s been going really well. Too bad we’re not asking investigators where they are going on their missions.  Oh! and another cool thing we did this week was teach the Plan of Salvation in Spanish under 5 min! It was so hard!

Mexican police lining the streets with bullet-proof shields.  Yikes! Scary, I know!

I just wanted to include this in here somewhere but I didn't know where to put it but I miss the primary kids! I miss playing for them, they are so cute! I think of them often.

To Tampa we go!

Food this week has been really interesting. First of all never mix dry oatmeal, honey and peanut butter... it just isn´t good. Second of all, always eat tamales for breakfast! YUM! And third chicken waffle sandwiches are surprisingly delicious! Among other things some Hermana’s tricked me into eating eggs! BLEH! Also they like to put cayenne pepper on everything! Fruit, salads, meat, veggies, and everything in between. Cayenne pineapple is pretty good but too much makes your stomach hurt.

Waffles and Chicken!

Anyways thanks to those of you who sent me letters I loved them and thanks to Mom for sending me pictures! If any of you have pictures of baby Ty I want to see them! Por Favor! Have a good week and "doubt your doubts before your belief!" (That´s my favorite quote from conference)

Love,

Hermana Mathis

(P.S. I´m sorry my spelling is so bad, when all you study is Spanish your English kind of goes south) 

  

At the Mexico City Temple

¡Hola once again!

This letter is going to be an extension of my first letter because I didn´t get to write all that I wanted to last week about all that has transpired here. First of all I want to clear up any misconceptions about me being an all-knowing Spanish speaking missionary. The language is HARD! Very hard, but with the Lord´s help I have been able to learn how to carry on a very simple conversation and praise the Lord my God.

Haha the other day I told our investigator Ignacio to read the wrong scripture so instead of having him read 3 Nefi 11:21 about baptism I had him read 3 Nefi 12:21 which basically says... "thou shalt not kill!" Of course we couldn´t really understand it but his face was so funny! Mi hermana quickly looked it up and then she was like Hermana no! But it was too late cause I already asked him how he felt about the scripture. Haha. Ignacio committed to baptism and now we are working with Mario a 40 year old man with bone cancer. Haha he said mujer instead of hombre so apparently his wife is cheating on him with another woman, but we know he meant man. Haha Because in reality our investigators are our teachers.

This week I hardly learned any Spanish, pero the hermanas latina told us that our prayers were sounding much better and that we sound more Mexican now. This week has been spiritually uplifting and my soul glories in my Eternal Padre. I memorized my missionary purpose in Spanish and am now working on the first vision, I´ve almost got it down.

So I hear it´s snowing up there is that correct? Don´t worry about me I´m enjoying the sunshine and rain here in Mexico! This week we also lost our latino roomates. It was the saddest thing that has happened so far! I miss them already.  Their names are Hermana Contreras y Hermana Diaz and they taught us so much. The thing about latinas though is that they like to do laundry. A LOT of laundry! We barely had time enough last P-day to get ours done. Now our casa is pretty much empty. Sad Day!

As far as the activities and food in the CCM, I am starting to get used to eating a cantaloupe a day. Haha jk, but we do eat a lot of fruit. But my absolute favorite is rice and beans!!! Let me repeat that there is nothing better than a plate of rice with refried beans! I eat it every day! They always serve us some weird form of meat and then rice and beans and bread. I love rice and beans. I also found that I love guavas! Oh and tamales for breakfast!

I told you before we excersize 5 days a week, normally mi y hermana Brough run but this past week we´ve been playing a lot of volleyball con nuestras Elderes. I´m actually getting pretty good. We also played futbol and that was fun as well.

Sundays are my favorite day other than p-day when I get to hear from you guys and then have an awesome devotional, porque on sundays we get to really focus on the spirit instead of the language. Lately we´ve been talking a lot about faith. I love the topic of faith, and I truly believe that with faith and action all things are possible. We also had an AMAZING devotional where we talked about looking forward. The speaker was inspired, it was just what I needed to hear to give me more enthusiasm towards my mission. I haven´t really been struggling but it was just a good motivator. He said, learn from the past but do not linger because things 100% of the time are ALWAYS, always, siempre, going to get better.

We also got to do a fun service activity this week with our branch who I adore. We love our branch because we get to talk with Hermanas, we love frienshipping new hermanas everyday the women here are beyond extrordinary! They are strong, cute, brilliant, and humble.

Anyways I got to go but know this,

¡Yo se que Dios le ama!

Sincerememte,
Hermana Mathis 

!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!

I'm in Mexico!

 

I have officially arrived in Mexico! What a ride it´s been! Luckily I didn't have any problems, my luggage arrived in tact! We are just going through orientation right now. Mexico is really fun! Everything is so colorful! There isn't any space anywhere because there are so many buildings. One minute you will see a really nice building and the next you will see a shack. There is no order to it all! I have been doing great! The people are so nice and I've made a lot of friends already. There are two people who are going to the same mission as me that I met on the plane, an Elder Connors and Sister Brough.

 

Things are looking up. I can't wait until I have more experiences to share with you. BTW, would one of you contact Georgina and let her know that I don't understand her obsession with the Dallas airport bathrooms. Sorry this email is written really badly. The keyboards are in Spanish and I'm still getting used to it.

 

The weather has been beautiful; the humidity really isn't all that bad. I will write you when I have more to say.

 

Love always,

Heather 

It's The Final Countdown!

     Hello everybody! So it's finally here the week that I leave for Tampa, with a pit stop in Mexico of course. I have not received my visa but this is because I am a dumb blonde and didn't read on my itinerary that they would stamp my passport with a visa when I got to Mexico so I'm all good to go! I've even made my bicycle arrangements.
    Preparing for a mission has been super hard. I think everything that Satan could possibly think of to lure me away from the mission has been thrown at me. The latest of these tricks has been a bad case of hives due to an allergic reaction to the Typhoid shot that I received. The hives started coming on Friday night but didn't get bad until last night at 9. I'm sorry to the friends I had to ditch to get some relief for the itching. Things continually got worse until I had about dollar bill sized hives all over. I was beginning to wonder why all these things kept happening that could prevent me from serving a mission. Luckily my father holds the priesthood and could give me a priesthood blessing, which was wonderful and calmed me down quite a bit. Then it was off to the emergency room! I stayed most of the night in the emergency room. I'm feeling so much better now and the hives have all disappeared.  I do not doubt that a huge part of that was due to the peace that I felt after my father's blessing. It seemed that as I started to calm down so did the hives. Satan has tried and failed to get inside my head and turn this into some tragedy, there's no way I'm missing that flight Tuesday morning!
     This all brings me back to my all time favorite scripture D&C 122:4 "And although their influence shall cast thee into trouble, and into bars and walls, thou shalt be had in ^ahonor; and but for a small ^bmoment and thy voice shall be more terrible in the midst of thine enemies than the fierce ^clion, because of thy righteousness; and thy God shall stand by thee forever and ever."
     This promise was made to Joseph as he was in Liberty jail but I think it applies to all of us. Though Satan will try with whatever he can to stop us, he cannot compete with God. Those who stay close to God are promised to have the voice of the lion in the midst of our only enemy, Satan. I also love that God promises Joseph in this scripture that he will stand by him forever and ever. No matter what trials we face in this life there is never a day when we don't have someone by our side! We can do hard things because the Lord has made it possible.
     Anyways have a good day everybody! Sing out loud praise the Lord, and don't lose sight of your eternal goals.

Love,
Heather