Half Way Through - Time is Flying By

Family and Friends,

I've officially been out 9 months! It's amazing how time has flown.

This week we've had the pleasure of having family home evening with several families and investigators. I've really learned the importance of learning the gospel with your family. Those who learn as a family learn at a far more accelerated rate. It's been fun to practice integrating games into our lessons and to teach all the kids.

Look! the leaves here are as big as we are!

We now have a new ward mission leader. He's really amazing, already he has helped us so much. His name is Brother Meyers. It's really sad to see Bro. Amyradakis go but we're happy to have Brother Meyers. Haha I think he was kind of shocked to learn that there were 8 missionaries that he was talking over. We love it though. The more missionaries the better!

Ray is well on his way to baptism. He may be baptized as soon as this weekend! Right now we're just helping him give up coffee, it's been hard but he's committed to doing it. We had an awesome lesson with him in the home of our Relief Society presdient. He's excited to join and has even invited his family who are anxious to see him be "drowned" (not literally). He and his family were moving this week so we were able to help him out with that.

I saw my first aligator! It was just a baby though.

We're teaching a new investigator named Jose Luis De Los Santos. He's a really genuine guy. Haha he tried to give me his violin! I told him I couldn't accept it. He started learning the lessons simply because he was interested in a church that's name was part of his name.(La Iglesia de Jesucristo DE LOS SANTOS de los Ulitmos Dias) Since he has started to pray and feel the holy ghost. We'll be meeting with him again soon, so we'll see how it goes.

Sometimes as a missionary it's hard to see how fast the Lord is Hastening his work but this week we had a zone district meeting and we were shocked to see that the number of baptisms from last month to this month had more than doubled! And that's just within our zone! We are continually making more and more progress. I love being a part of it!

We developed a new ward mission plan that I really like and want to share with you. It's three sentances:

Invite everyone,

invite another one,

and be a better missionary this year than you were last year.

Elder Christofferson said, "Don't be content with being busy." and to add to that Elder Clarke said, "Happy always, content never!"

There is still so much work to be done. I hope you all are taking part in it! It is the most fun and exciting thing that I've done :)

Love,

Hermana Mathis

Haha, we chased down this baby toad because we thought it was so  cute.
Little did we know that it's just the season, they are everywhere

Hermana Holloway with a baby toad.