Hola From the MTC! Week 1

Hey friends and family! I hope that you are all doing well. I am doing great, I love being a missionary. It is tough work no doubt about it, but it is a work that also brings great happiness.

The first day in the MTC felt like the longest day of my life. Luckily it was a quick send off to avoid any drawn out goodbyes. Right when I got dropped one of the first things that I did was get my missionary badges. The spirit was so strong as a badge was placed above my heart, with two names on it. Hermana Mathis and Jesucristo! How lucky I am to be a representative of Jesus Christ and to wear his name every day. 

I was super confident and excited as I walked with my host, lugging around my massive bags. My poor host could not carry one of my suitcases up the stairs so someone else had to help her. I felt pretty bad. I felt better when my companion told me the same thing. She too brought full suitcases and made her host struggle a bit. Heaven help us when we are supposed to carry two of these massive suitcases alone. 

My companion is awesome! Her name is Hermana Romero. She is from Linden, Utah and was actually in my American Heritage Lab at BYU. Small world. She will be serving in the Argentina, Neoquen mission. She loves dance and is hilarious. We have a good time together. You have to laugh through the hard times and that is surely what we do. 

My confidence slightly decreased as I entered my classroom in which the teachers were already speaking in Spanish. I was definitely a bit rusty and overwhelmed. There are a lot of missionaries in my district that are completely fluent because they have grown up speaking the language. Luckily there are a few who are in my same boat. But the most important thing for me to remember is that I cannot compare myself to them. That is when I become distressed. Comparison is the thief of joy! I read that somewhere a few weeks ago and boy is it true. 

We had to teach a lesson in SPANISH our second day here! Crazy. I was able to understand the importance of having the spirit to teach. Without the spirit we are nothing. Though our language is no where near perfect right now, we are able to testify that we do have a message that is perfect, and that we are missionaries called of God. We have taught a few more lessons since and though they are a bit stressful they are great learning opportunities. The spirit can still be felt through broken spanish. 

My testimony about prayer has been strengthened greatly. The Lord will make us taller on your knees thank we will ever be on our feet. He wants to hear from us, and he wants us to obey him. Even more so, we should desire to please Him. This goes beyond just obeying, is is fulfilling the will of the Lord and making him proud in our efforts. It is doing good things with a good attitude.This was a little hard when Hermana Romero and I had to clean the toilets for both the boys and the girls, but nonetheless we got through it.  

Yesterday was such a great day.We got to go to the Morris center on BYU campus for lunch yesterday because the mission presidents are occupying our cafeteria! It was so much fun  to be on campus again.  

The spirit was in all of our meetings. It testifies of truth. And thankfully we got a little break from spanish because most of our meetings were in English. We watched Elder Maxwell's talk titled "O Divine Redeemer." If you haven't heard this talk you need to! A line that he says that I love is we cannot be christ's special witnesses if we ourselves are not special, if we ourselves do not lead special lives. I love missionary work. I love the feeling I receive when I testify of our living Savior Jesus Christ. I hope to become more like him through my service. I love you all and thank you so much for your prayers. I feel them! Alma 26:27- " Now when our hearts were depressed, and we were about to turn back, behold the Lord comforted us and said: Go amongst thy brethren, the Lamanites, and bear with patience thy afflictions, and I will give unto you success. Adios!!

Love, Hermana Mathis