Transfer 2, Week 7 in Prattville

This week started my 2nd transfer here in Prattville and my second to last transfer on my mission.  It is so crazy how time flies by!  

On Tuesday this week we had zone training.  It was kind of a crazy day because transfers were the next day.  But it worked out.  For the admin that we shared with the zone we did something a little different.  We had an Easter egg hunt.  We put all the admin we needed to share into eggs and of course candy in some eggs and everyone went scavenging around the church trying to find them.  We thought we were pretty clever.  I was able to train on Patience during zone training, specifically patience in missionary work.  I used an equation.  Faith+Hope=Patience.  When you grow you faith and hope you put more trust in God which will allow you to become more patient with His timing.  I also used an analogy of a grilled cheese.  I first wanted to cook one and show everyone that if you put the heat on high and are impatient you will burn the grilled cheese.  But if you put it on medium (the Lord's timing) then you will make the perfect grilled cheese.  Sadly, we couldn't find a griddle in time so I only got to talk about it.  It was a great zone training though.  

Wednesday we had transfers.  The weather was suppose to be super crazy here in Alabama. They were expecting super dangerous tornados all across the state.  God must have known that our entire mission was basically being transferred because there were only a few thunderstorms and then it turned into 80 degree weather.  I always love going to transfers.  You always get to see your friends!  I said good bye to Elder Honn, and got Elder Lewis.  Elder Lewis is a Jamaican.  He says "literally" after every other word. It is pretty funny.  That night we did some zone planning with the STL's Chavez and Scoleri.  We came up with a theme for this transfer.  "April Showers Bring May FLowers."  Yes, Sister Chavez came up with that one.  I wanted Star Wars, lol.  But it is a really great theme.  Our end goal is for everyone in our zone to baptize this transfer.  We announced the theme on a conference call and the next few days we kept getting texts about how people are setting baptismal dates for this transfer.  Hopefully we can all baptize!

Friday we had a strange day.  We got stuck moving this less active family for 3 1/2 hours.  We said we could only stay for an hour, but they ignored that.  We drove to the house they were moving into and then they drove us to their trailer 30 minutes away to help move some heavy stuff.  The trailer was disgusting.  They put of 9 bug bombs.  There was not a single area of the house that didn't have dead roaches all over the floor.  I almost threw up.  And then we tried to move a fridge in the most redneck way possible that almost killed me.  They decided to back up the hand made trailer to the front porch and just try to lift it onto the trailer from the porch.  I was alone on one side with a couple hundred pound fridge lifting it onto the trailer.  All the sudden the trailer unhitches from the truck and I plummet 3 feet with a fridge.  What a blessing it is that I can squat like a champ because if not I would have been smashed.  I think I am going to have back problems when I am older because of all the redneck moving that I have done.  Later that night was even more interesting.  The STL's needed us to come give a less active a blessing.  So we go over there with them and we talk for a second with the guy.  He is a little crazy, but aren't we all?  He asks me to give the blessing so Elder Lewis Annoints and then I start to give the blessing.  In the middle of the blessing someone starts banging on the window and yelling.  I sit quiet waiting for it to pass for a minute and they don't stop.  I finish the blessing.  Obviously the Spirit wasn't there, but what a good experience.  The Sisters were super apologetic afterwards.  Nothing they did.  Instead of a spiritual moment, we got a "funny" blessing experience to write in our journals instead.  

Saturday we had an awesome missionary miracle. We were driving to a part member families house when we passed a park. Elder Lewis said, hey we should go over there. We decided to try to see the part member family first. They ended up not being home so we went over to the park. We got there and saw a family. There was a mom and three boys. Unfortunately they started walking away. Elder Lewis was worried that they would think that we were stalking them if we followed them, so to make it not look as weird we knocked on some doors.(: While we were in the middle of a conversation with a man at his door they walked back to the park. We finished what we were doing at the door and went over and talked to the lady. Her name is April. We started talking about the Restoration and all things that encompassed that. We asked her when a good time would be to come back. She was a little wish washy and so I promised her that if she listened to this message that she would find peace in her life. Right then she started crying. She said that she knew that we were sent to her at this time and that she would like to meet with us again. It is so fun to be on the Lord's time. He truly does guide us to those people who are in need to hearing the Gospel. Sometimes we just have to be patiently knocking on doors until they get back to the park. 

I am excited for this upcoming week. I can feel that we are going to find a bunch of new people to teach.  It is going to be bomb.(:

Love and miss y'all,

Elder Jax Matthews

DECEMBER 16, 2013

Well we had another good week out here in Gerona. Things feel like they´re going so well and we are always so busy, but then sometimes we look at our numbers and feel like we haven´t done anything at all, but we know we´re working hard and giving it all we got. This week one of the greatest things we saw was from one of the active youth in our branch. We had been taking him out on visits and what not and just working with him and he´s been such a great help. He´s an active kid but just hasn´t had the desire to serve a mission... he told us it was because the missionaries before have been too much like robots and he felt like a mission was just all serious and no fun but when he met us that changed his mind. So one day we went out with him, on his birthday, had a visit and just doing the Lord´s work and all went well just a good day. Then, at the end we went back to the chapel and the first counselor in the Branch Presidency was there and Moroni asks him,¨hey where can I start my mission papers?¨ I just looked at Elder Cabanas and was like no way. Now he has started his papers and is always asking me things about the mission and it just makes me so happy. It makes me so happy to see the youth change for the better and now he is changing and will be leaving to go change other peoples lives.. That is such an incredible blessing to see.

My companion is just a flat out great person. He just loves everyone and always has everyone just wanting to talk to him and be around him. Just says a whole lot about someone's character when people are so attracted to someone and it just constantly impresses me. He always shows lots of patience as well. We had a visit with this family and they would get really off track and a little bit rowdy but everytime that happened he just had this power to bring back the Spirit to the room and change everything. It turned out to be such a great lesson and now the only problem is the travel for this family. It all just starts with how much he loves these people and how they love him. Just so great.  I´m always like hey let´s go contact in the street! And he´s like ehh nah let´s not. But then I have to think to myself like would I really want to go do street contacting if I were serving a mission in St. George? So I can understand that. When it comes down to it that´s about the only problem but it´s understandable. 

So the funny story of the week... Elder Cabanas and I are walking through the street and we see this dude and Elder Cabanas goes, Morrocon? And I go now dude he´s from here or Romania and so we contact him... First thing he does, in Spanish, is say ¨By the blood of Jesus Christ I cleanse you from the devil that dwells inside you¨. Sooo weird then he asks us to go sit on a bench and talk to him.. So we did. First he tells us how he had a dream one night that God told him that Jesus was coming and he asked God when.. Then he woke up. The next night the same thing happened then God told him he was coming at the end of the year. So Jesus is coming at the end of the year but he told us yanno since the time of God is different than ours he is either coming the 30, 31 or the 1st. God told him that all people must read the Bible, listen to good Christian music and pray. We asked him he you believe there´s a prophet today in the world and he said... Yes, I am the prophet of God. Then he blessed us two more times from evil spirits. Hahah and we are meeting with him again tonight! Whoo

One thing I learned this week was just  about humility. Humbling ourselves to the Lord is one of the hardest attributes to develop but I´ve seen that it can change anything. The Lord is so much more likely to bless us with the things that we need. He sees that we are willing to accept our challenges and still be faithful to Him. One of the greatest things we can do for our Savior... Become like Him. Well that´s all my week! 

Elder Matthews

December 9, 2013

Well this week we saw some great things happened and it was a great blessing --but one of my favorites is about our investigator Sami. She is from Honduras and her husband is a member of 14 years and he´s super great and they have two kids that are 5 and 3. So this women Sami is super good, she knows everything and sometimes I just feel like she´s teaching us. We had one day planned to teach the Plan of Salvation and we asked her what she knew about it and she told us everything perfectly. It was incredible, we asked her, "how did you know all that,"  and she asks us, "well don´t you remember giving me the pamphlet?" So that was our first lesson with her. The next we had challenged her to read the Book of Mormon because we know that was what she was missing. So she said she would every morning ... so for our next visit we came back and before we even asked her she just says,¨I´ve read the Book of Mormon every morning!¨Just so excited, it was so great, then we were like, "wow tell us about it" so she recited everything to us perfectly. Then we were kind of like hmm... should we continue and teach lesson 3 now or what... then she asks us if we could all read together so we read another chapter with her and her husband and it was so great.  We tied it into lesson 3 and invited her to baptism.. She said "yes," but she doesn´t feel prepared enough yet... So she has these great desires but doesn´t feel ready. Still such a miracle though just to see someone who truly is prepared, just needs the push.

I´m loving Elder Cabanas and things are going well. He´s a great missionary and the people all love him, partially because he speaks the language, that´s what I always tell him to kid, but I always tell him how impressed I am that he connects with all the Rama so well. He´s just a great happy Elder. He´s got that special talent with people that not everyone has. He connects with people I couldn´t and that´s how I know we needed to be together at this time in the mission. Aside from that I finished the Book of Mormon on the 2nd and just wow, the power that comes from it. There is no way to deny that book. Every ounce of it is so true. After finishing it and praying about it I just felt spiritually enlightened. Now I am reading Doctrine and Covenants and have all ready come across many interesting things. It just proves how true and real our God and Savior are. One thing I loved was D&C 38:30, we just can´t have any fear because we need to be prepared for our Lord. I love that. 

Well, Mom, there's no where to eat here.  No, no, no place like Walmart to grocery shop or anything...just like corner stations like gas stations.  Nobody at all feeds us here.  I eat a lot of chips and salsa from the gas station because I use all my money for travel.  Tomorrow I will be going to France because a little pueblo in my area is on the border.  Today I am going to see the ancient city with the Elders...I am super excited.  The packages I got from you Mom are the greatest thing ever...I mean the greatest ever...every letter makes me so happy...I love hearing from everyone it is sooo neat.  The Christmas tree is just wow.

I love you all and hope you have a great week! I miss everyone!

 Love Elder Matthews

DECEMBER 2, 2013

Well first off I´m just freezing hahahh. It´s so cold here. But let´s see, where to start.. My comp... hahaha he´s sick. He doesn´t speak English so at times it´s just a struggle because I´ll be way tired and not wanna speak Spanish and he can´t speak English and so I´ll mess with him and speak Catalan because he doesn´t know it.  He speaks Portuguese and Spanish so I am trying to learn that for fun.  But hmm… our ward isn´t even half as good as our old one but hey es lo que hay. It´s still really good. I have a new girlfriend though.. She´s 5 years old and just loves me hahahah her name is Andrea.  She comes from the best family in our ward. Hmmm my area is sooo far away. I may have been in France yesterday... jealous? It´s a lot prettier than Hospitalet but I miss my home ward…a lot. A lot of Spaniards do live here but now there are tons of people from Honduras hahaha.  All the people from my home ward wrote me this week.  They told me they are all coming to visit me on Christmas Eve!!!  It is like a three hour drive for them…I love them so much.  They said they are bringing gifts and my little girls sent me a letter…I almost cried.  No Christmas here in Girona but back in Hospitalet where they are from South America, they do celebrate Christmas.

I am near a Dominos and a kabob place….nothing else hahahah. I think the food is even worse here. Funny thing is I came from the dense city where I could walk it in 20 minutes and now I have to take a train an hour and a half to get anywhere hahaha.  We contact in the street but we don´t live in our area. There are a lot of people in the city but probably not even half as much as were in Hospitalet.  We do not get fed here at all ... AWFUL!  Today we are gonna play basketball.   We’ve got a Hermana that´s like 6’ 2” and plays college bball and her boyfriend who is serving a mission will be playing at BYU he´s 6’ 11”!

Well first off the change here has been really hard but I think I´m starting to get back into the swing of things. I never thought I would grow to love people the way I have. I can´t believe how hard it was to leave people that I only knew for three months, but now I could never forget them. That ties into what I have learned this week… I feel I´ve really come to learn, or better understand, the true love of Christ. There are all these people that I barely even know or am just starting to get to know and I hear their situation and I just feel this true sadness within, I truly feel their pain, I truly want to help them. The thing is sometimes I just don´t know how.  You see a sad older lady who is telling you her life story through tears and you just want to hug her but can´t... so you resort to the only thing that you can do and is share the comfort that this gospel brings. It has truly amazed me the way that sharing a simple scripture to someone like that just changes the entire atmosphere of the situation. All the sudden you feel this love, this warmth and their tears turn from sadness to tears of joy because of a feeling they can´t describe, but we know to be the Spirit. Just something I´ve learned this week.

This was truly a miracle to me. So we went to our ramas noche de familias and there was this lady there, pretty old, that everyone said comes super often but isn´t a member. So anyway, we decided to go around a circle and tell what we were grateful for and when it got to her she said, “no skip me,” but we all insisted she go… so she just said that she truly wasn´t grateful for anything, that her family had abandoned her, she felt so alone, no one loved her, that she was honestly just waiting to die. So after she said that everyone just sat there and said nothing so after some seconds of silence I just said Hermana I want you to know that I´m grateful for you, that you´re still alive, and that you´re with us right now. Just know that I love you and that our Heavenly Father loves you more than you could ever imagine. And that was basically it no one said anything more and we just carried on. So on Sunday we walk into the chapel and first person I see sitting in the back is her, all alone. So I go over to her and say hello and all she did was say Elder, thank you so much. And that was all. For some reason that´s just a miracle to me and I just felt I don´t know…different. 

Anyway everything is going super duper great up here. So I hope everyone is doing well! I love you all!

Elder Mateos

November 25, 2013

I am going to freaking Girona... Jolin!! I leave in a few hours… It’s supposed to be the prettiest place in Spain I guess and it’s got snow.   But one downfall is my comp -- straight up native, not a word of English so I´m a little scared. His name is Elder Ca. and he´s from Madrid!

I was SOO sad to leave all the people oh my gosh…my little family here all the little girls.. it was soo sad…

I´m actually really sad to leave ma . . .  I do not know my address yet.  Ahh the worst…so there´s this family, N___ the mom, K___,  V___ and D___, and I reactivated them and they´re my FAV!!  But I spent all yesterday with them and everything like the dad abuses the mom and all this awful stuff and I helped a lot with that and with the daughters too . . . I would walk them to school when they needed it and help with homework and all that, but last night I was sharing my last message and everyone started crying.  Elder S  was with me and so after the message we got on our knees to pray and I started praying.  Both the little girls, 14 and 12 were holding my hands, like our fam used to, and they were bawling. Then we stood up to go and they charged me with hugs…you are not to hug but they literally attacked me and wouldn’t let go and she was crying like crazy saying porfavor no se vaya no se vaya porfavor... so sad. Then V____  ughhh she was my favorite and she was just dying in tears and saying no se vaya no se vaya lo quiero por favor se queda aqui... and she just literally attacked me with a hug and then the mom, who has been like my other mom -- always feeding me and helping me… she was saying good bye and just grabbed me and squeezed me too they just were crushed. They told me no one has ever changed their lives like I have.  Ugh I didn´t want to leave mom... It was so hard for me… so many tears.  I love them.  It was so sad... that whole family just crying and telling me lo quiero lo quiero elder por favor no se vaya... You just don’t want to leave you don’t want them to go backwards. They´re gonna come all the way up to Girona to visit me on Christmas though!!!! Whooo! And one kid I reactivated is going through the temple on the 14th... I might get to go with him to Madrid!

Where I am going will take three hours to get there. You can see France from our piso hahah!!  Elder  C and W are both natives.  In Girona I’ll speak Catala.  My Spanish well, I am nearly fluent I’d say.  Of course, here and there I’m like “what the heck did you just say?” but I get 95% of everything and I speak it fluently.  My Catala needs work now.  I haven’t been practicing but now I will!  Got a new diccionario and everything.  I will need to learn French too! 

No Mama there’s no Christmas here… Its Los Dias de los Reyes. The days of Kings. Legit no Christmas. Just kinda like yay Christmas, it's weird.   So it's not too weird that Ryker's French teacher didn't know what candy canes were when he gave them to her!  Hahaha  Well, here there’s no first week of January we truly celebrate. And in Barça it´s like 70% Athiest the rest Catholic. Crazy right? But yeah we are baptizing like crazy over here. Ok not really but kind of…!

Well, I love you very much and will let you know where I am as  

soon as I can. 

Elder Matthews