!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

Mission Farewell

Had my mission farewell yesterday! What a great day! Thanks to all my friends and family that came out. For those who didn't come here is the gist of what I talked about.

• The Lord has not forgotten you. He has "graven you upon the palms" of his hands.
• Sometimes he mourns with us rather than fix the problem/sometimes our losses are meant to bring about greater things.
• The Lord knows exactly how to help us. He knows exactly who to send our way to mend our sorrows. Sometimes we get so caught up in the idea that he suffered for our sins that we forget he also suffered for our pains and afflictions so that "he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people in their infirmities.” (Alma 7:12)
• Because the Lord has not forgotten us we must not forget him. We must let our minds be continually turned to God. We covenant when we take the sacrament to "always remember him."
• We must not forget our fellow beings. Give random compliments. Pray for the ones you love, and the ones you don't. Teach others that the Lord has not forgotten them. 

I love my friends so much! Notice there is only one boy in this picture, that is because all my other guy friends are already on their missions, they're such good examples to me. My friends are without a doubt crazy, they're sweet, and they are the ones who continually make my life fun and enjoyable. I have such good memories with all of them. 

As for my family, they're the best! Could I have asked for prettier sisters? I'm going to miss them all so much. I'm going to miss Karen's hugs, slap wars with Mckell, shopping with Whitney, and talking with Jess while I hold my nephew Ty. I love my parents too, they are the best parents in the world. My dad is the smartest, sweetest, handiest, best man I know. I love him for looking out for me, for helping me achieve all my dreams, for teaching me about the gospel and for teasing me about every boy I bring within two miles of the house. Words cannot express the love I have for my mom. She is my best friend. She always knows what to say. She's the one who on my darkest days takes me shopping and gives me all her love. I love the times we spend together just the two of us whether we are folding towels and watching TV or eating out at Gingers. She compensates for my lack of planning, she really pulled everything together yesterday.