The Last Transfer:(:(

GUYS I absolutely love this family. Joas and Adriana are the most amazing people and I am in love with this family. They are close to our age but super mature and I love the way that they treat each other and their kids. On Tuesday, we visited them with our bishop and talked about eternal families. We read “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” with them, which is basically a statement the prophet released that states the role and importance of parents and family. We read it with them and had the best conversation about families and the plan God has for us and the Spirit was SO strong and after a little pause Adriana looked at us and said “I want to get married and I want to get baptized. I know all this is true.” We all kind of paused and then everyone started smiling and this warm happy feeling came into the room. We are trying to plan with the ward to get a simple little wedding organized for them and everyone is really excited. I know one of the reasons I am here is to be able to know them and I am so grateful for opportunities like this in my mission.

We also met Mariana this week, and it has been quite the interesting turn of events with her. She is 24 and literally famous(like 16million followers on instagram), but you would never know it just by talking to her. She went through a breakup recently and lost a few close friends and suffers from depression and told us she wants to find real happiness because she is tired of trying to find it in other places or people. She came to church and loved it and has become a friend in these last couple weeks. We are going out to acai with her and hoping to help her understand who she really is in the eternal perspective of things. It has been strange to see how perfect her life looks to the world and how sad and lonely she really is. More to come next week…

Still visiting Raquel’s family and their challenge is 8am church but other than that are learning so fast and I love these kids. Brought them lollipops one of our first visits and now if I come empty-handed, they all get sad! What have I started.. hahaha

Divisions this week and I got to spend another day with sister Bonierski. She has become an unofficial companion and a really good friend <3

Other than that it has been a pretty normal week! We had transfers last night but we knew we would stay so it wasn’t too much of a surprise. Still doesn’t seem real I am in my last 6 weeks…but 6 weeks is still a lot of time right??

Love you all and am so grateful for your prayers,

Sister Lauren Mather

Not Much Other Than The Cutest Family Ever

Joas and Adriana came to church!!! They are the cutest family we met a couple weeks ago and came to church yesterday!!! The ward welcomed them so well and they already seem like members of the church. They are looking for a place to strengthen their kids and family and said that they always visited other churches but nothing really felt right. When they started reading the Book of Mormon, felt something different, and read it almost every night together now!!!! I am so so grateful to have met them and excited to continue visiting them.

Not a ton of time to write today so I will send a bunch of pictures but other highlights of the week were my 16 month mark(!), the prettiest viewpoint with a story I will tell you guys in December, a prayer with a catholic lady that lasted almost 20 minutes, "burrito babies" someone gave us, and pizza and açaí. Trying to take advantage of the short time I have left here!!

Love you all,

Sister Mather

Thy Will Be Done...

This week was a pretty normal one, we had zone conference and general conference and I kind of feel like I tried to take a drink out of a firehose of revelation and spiritual information and I am still trying to process all of it but I am so grateful to have a living prophet, modern revelation, and a God that is continuing and unchanging. He always spoke to his people through prophets and that will never change. Our world is so different from the world in the Bible and as important as it is to study the scriptures, it is so vital for us to have revelation for our days as well. I know he is real, that his son Jesus Christ is my older brother, and that he lives and loves each one of us beyond comprehension.

Still visiting Larissa and Eliziane and one of the hardest parts of the mission is helping people know the truth and recieve answers from God and choose not to follow that answer. Sometimes it is out of fear, discomfort, unwillingness to change, etc....They don't trust in Him enough to believe that He has a bigger purpose, that he could do more with their lives and families than they could do alone. It is amazing to see so many people looking for comfort and relief and love in so many places and the only place they don't go is to the Lord. He always gives us everything we need to follow HIm and wants so bad for us to be happy but the only thing he won't ever do is force us or get in the way of our own free will. That is His gift to us, the ability to choose, and he promised to give us everything we need to return and live with him someday but in the end, it is only up to us.

Sorry that was kind of preachy but I am grateful for all the things he gives to us- the restored church, modern prophet, the holy spirit, families, thebible and the book of mormon, families, EVERYTHING we need to be happy in this life and to eventually return with Him someday. But it is all up to us to choose to follow.

Grateful for my mission that teaches me constantly to give up my own stubborn will, do just follow and trust in Him, and He always leads me to things better that I ever had in mind.

Love love love you all,

Sister Lauren Mather

photos/videos:
zone conference!
trainers and trainees meeting and i met sister stringer who lived in north bend for 4 years!!!!
just a normal day
conference sunset