Monday, April 27, 2015

Milagros! Milagros! Milagros!



Hermana Hoggan and me! (a little wardrobe sharing going on!)
I found my cousins! This is Mr. and Mrs. Velasquez!


Just a tiny hill in Alameda Campeche.
Alameda Campeche

Okay, so I had some pretty neat experiences this week, well mainly two! We got in some small arguments with some Jehovah’s Witnesses; they scare me. They come to our house and try to preach to us, but we just don’t go outside. I did give one a folleto of the restoration once; they didn’t like that very much.

The last week we found that our A/C works in one of the rooms! I taped the window so the bugs wouldn’t get in (thanks for the idea Eric! from your car window!) then we moved our hammocks into the other room and we are now sleeping like babies! It was soooo bad before, we had two fans that were just moving the hot air around in our faces all night, but we were SAVED! 

On Wednesday we were waiting for a bus, it was late and we had to get back to our house. We were waiting for like 10 minutes and then a taxi drove by and I asked should we take it!? And then it drove by. We decided that if another one drove by before the bus that we would go in it. We saw a bus turn the corner and started coming for us, I said oh well I guess we just weren’t meant to take a taxi. Then all of the sudden one cut off the bus and came for us. We took that as a sign that we needed to just take the taxi home. We got in and started contacting the driver. We got his address and gave him a folleto. The next day we went looking for him. No luck, wasn’t home. The next day we were back in the area and decided to look for him again. We found a lady there and she was like his mistress or something because he didn’t live there, but only sometimes comes. We talked with her a little and she had talked with the missionaries before; we have another sita to go back with her this week. Before we left we asked for a reference; she said she didn’t know anyone, but then right before we left she says some members of our church lived in front of her. We didn’t know them, so we left and yelled at their door. A lady came out and we presented ourselves; she’s not a member, but her sons are. She said they weren’t home, but maybe another day. We tried contacting her, but she was a little hard hearted. We left and told her we will come back the next week. She just shewed us away. We started walking two houses down and started contacting this lady outside her house with her two sons. 3 minutes into the contact, the lady of the member yelled for us to come back. We paused our time with the contact, and went back. When we went back she said one of her sons were home and wanted to start going back to church. He came out and started talking with us. He said he hasn’t gone to church for 8 years but wants to start going back now, and feels like he is ready. His wife isn’t a member, but he wants to try and get her to come to church too! It was really cool, because you could just see how excited he was to have missionaries back at his home.

After that we went back and talked with the lady that was outside her house and taught them a lesson and now have them as investigators, and they gave us 3 other people to talk to. All of this happened only because we decided to take a taxi 3 days earlier. It is so true that the Lord put people or things in our path so we can help others. The Holy Ghost really does speak so quietly to us, we just have to listen for it! If we wouldn’t have taken the bus this never would have happened, or if we never would have stopped to talk with the lady outside her house, the mom of the less active never would have found us to talk with her son, we wouldn’t have found any of these great people that we did in less than 1 hour, all because the Lord put something in our path and we chose to follow it. This was a really great experience for me to really learn to listen and feel for the spirit. There are so many different things that could happen if we do or don’t listen to the spirit and follow the plan the Lord has for us. 

One other thing that was amazing this week. The last 4 weeks I have had this weird rash on my upper leg, it was really big and it just looked like mosquito bites, but they didn’t go away. I finally called and went to the doctor. He gave me cream and told me I had to go get blood taken just to see. The next day we went and got the results back and another doctor looked at it and said I had/have Dengue (I’m not sure if that’s exactly how you spell it) It’s an infection you get from mosquito bites. It’s really bad actually. It’s like West Nile virus I think, but a little worse. Your body just kind of shuts down or something like that. Anyways the doctor said they took some of the tests 2 times and said that it was very, very weird and not normal, but my body just healed its self from the sickness completely. I never felt sick or had any of the illness, it just felt itchy. I talked with the wife of the President and she was freaking out a little about it, because another missionary had it and was in the hospital for 5 days. I was really, really blessed to have this blessing happen. I know Heavenly Father is really watching over me and really is helping me be here and keep going. I know that it wasn’t just some weird thing that my body did by itself, but that it was the Lord helping me not get sick and end up in a hospital! I am so grateful for all of the blessings that have happened this week, and there were so many more, but I have no time to write them all! I know that He is here beside me and helping me every moment of every day! I love you all and thanks for all of your prayers! They really are helping me! Every single one of them! 

Stay happy and humble! Count your blessings! 
Love Hermana Velasquez

Oh, P.S. Just so you don’t all freak out; I have pills that I’m taking 2 times a day to wipe it all clean from my body and I’ll have another check up here soon, so don’t worry about me! 

Monday, April 20, 2015

Eating IGUANA for the week...


My view of Campeche!
One of our investigators killed this iguana and I held it! They are planning on eating it for the week.
My companion, Hermana Hoggan, and me.
The hermanas in our district.


Well, first I ate stingray the second day here, so for this area there is a LOT different! It is SUPER hot here and we are dying. There are so many hills here and they are steep! Remember the hill at the Greenwood house? Well, they are like that but at least 5x as bad, actually 10x because of the sun and the heat and the sweating. We are close to the ocean so there is a lot of humidity here too! Our house is super-hot too, but we just take longer cold showers to try to make up for it! Ha-ha!

In this week we saw a lot of great blessings happening. Well it was a little rough at first, because we were still trying to get used to how one another teaches, but it got a lot better by the end of the week. Not gonna lie, I had a little panic attack in the week about just being in a new area, the heat, having a HUGE area to try and know, and getting a good relationship with the members and the investigators. I just had to stop and remind myself to breath and have patience, because it’s not possible to do all of that in one week! It was just hard because I had been in an area for so long and knew what I was doing and knew everyone in that area, and had good relations with them all, and now I’m here not knowing anything. BUT it has gotten a lot better and we have found a lot of great people in this one week. This area really is so great and the people are a lot different too. The area looks like it should be in Greece because of how all of the houses are set up on the hills. It’s pretty great to be able to be on top of the hills and look out and see the ocean! Oh they also have stairs to heaven everywhere. It’s like “oh, you don’t want to go on a hike up this hill?  Oh, it’s okay…here is a massive staircase for ya!” It’s some good exercise, and really I’m pretty sure I have already lost like 5 pounds, so that was an upside to the hills and all! Ha-ha!

We went and visited this family that was a reference of an investigator and talked with her and got to know them.  They are a great family and really are so humble. They literally live in this plastic shack that has holes all over it and shakes every time the wind blows. They have two little children that are so great and are so cute. The little girl reminds me a lot of Charli; she is super sassy! Ha-ha! We also started teaching this lady; her name is Rosa and she is just great. A year ago or two, I can’t remember, she was in an accident with on oven where it blew up in her house, and her little grandson was in there with her. They both have scars all over their body from the fire, and Rosie doesn’t have her legs. They went through a lot and they both are just so happy. We were talking with her about the plan de salvacion and we were telling her that when we are resurrected that we will be perfect in every form and any scar or malfunction we have with our body will be perfect in every form. She had never heard that before, and she just had the biggest smile on her face to know that one day she will have the chance to walk again and be perfect like Christ. It was a really great spiritual experience to be able to help bring that knowledge to her! 

I really am so grateful to be here in this area and meet all of these great people. It has already pushed me a lot and will keep pushing me to be a better teacher for these people! Hermana Hoggan is great and don’t worry; we are actually doing good at speaking Spanish about 22 hours of the day; we still fault 2 but we will get there, ha-ha! Thanks for all of the great letters and all of the love from you all! Continue to be grateful for everything you have and look for the Lord’s hand in your life every day! I love you lots and have a great week full of lots of happiness! 

Oh, and my old bishop wrote me this week and told me Vicente got the priesthood and is going to bless the sacrament this next Sunday and that they are going to take him inside the temple this week!!!! I was really excited about that and I got a little teary-eyed, but he is all taken care of! 

Les amo mucho,
Hermana Velasquez

Monday, April 13, 2015

BEST WEEK EVER!!!

Vicente got baptized on Friday!





Practicing for the baptism...
One more picture with the family Foster.
Our last supper with the bishop!
Both Hermana Bailey and I got transferred from Pacabtun.

So excited!!! My new companion is Hermana Hoggan! We've been friends since the MTC!
 Okay first things first! Thanks for all the prayers with Vicente, he got baptized on Friday!!!! And was confirmed yesterday! They had 4 people in there to baptize him, it was a little stressful! They had him float on his back and then they all just pushed him down into the water. It was the most different baptism I have ever seen, but it was so good and he was sooo happy. He gave his testimony and it was just the best and I was just so proud of him and how far he has come! His wife died 4 years ago and was VERY Catholic! Missionaries talked to them a long time ago when they were both in the house, but it didn’t go anywhere, but thanks to those elders for planting the seed, he was baptized and is now progressing to eternity. The ward is going to take him to the temple in the end of this month to go and do or watch baptisms for the dead, I’m not really sure which.
We also had transfers and....My companion left to another area. Hermana Bailey is in Centro right now and I....also got changed! I am in Campeche right now with Hermana Hoggan!!! She came with me from the MTC. Campeche is a different state in Mexico. It’s more by the ocean. I guess we can see it from the area and go closer on p-days so that will be fun! And she says there are A LOT of hills so we will see how this goes! I was really, really sad to leave Pacabtun, but it’s good to get out and grow. They are putting elders in the area. (It’s a little dangerous in one of our areas at night so yeah, (don’t worry mom!).)

This morning we went and saw Vicente and he thought that only one of us was going to be leaving. It was probably one of the hardest goodbyes I have ever done. We went with a member to go see him and Hermana Bailey and I just started tearing up and the member told him that we were both leaving cuz we couldn’t do it. He just put his face in his hands and started to cry. I felt so, so bad. He has just gotten baptized and we both had to leave him. I have faith that the ward will really watch out for him, and I really hope that he gets along really well with the new elders. He really has changed my life and I will miss him so much, but I know that is why we both had to be there one transfer longer to help him be baptized. I am so happy for him and the choice he made, and I know he is so happy too!

I am really sad that we both had to leave, but I know it was for a reason and we are both going to grow in our new areas! I am so excited to start here in Alameda Campeche. Everyone always says it’s so much different than Merida! Vamos a ver! Sorry I don’t have too much to write this week, but I hope that you all have had the best week and thank you for all of your prayers and support for me!

Yo simpre muy agradicido por ustedes! Yo se que los familias son eturnas y que podemos a continuar a cressar en nuestro vidas aqui! Gracias por todo!
Les amo mucho!
Hermana Velasquez

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Happy Easter! #pray4vicente


Happy Easters!


We took Vicente to see the temple!

Hermana Bailey has 1 year in the mission and I have 8 months!
Photo bombed while showing off our "Easter dresses"!

FRIED FISH!!!
I just keep seeing people and/or pictures of people who look like my cousin, Alex.
So this week was Semana Santa. Basically it’s when nobody has school for 15 days and all of the stores shut down, and all of the Catholic people come one to worship. We found out this week that our area is where they all come to celebrate Easter. On Friday that’s the day that NOBODY works and everyone is at church, but all of the members in our ward went swimming for an activity...ha-ha! There is this huge church in our area called Cristo Rey and people from other states come on these huge buses to attend this big conference.  Kind of like our general conference, but a lot smaller. There were a lot of people in white walking in the streets; it was really weird and really intimidating, ha-ha. We just had a normal day, a lot harder to contact people, but it was good. 

This whole week we were prepping our investigators and ourselves for the conference. We had 3 of our investigators there and we were soooo excited for that! The family Foster came to one session and Vicente when to two of them and the priesthood session. He has a baptism date for April10th and he is really, really excited! We are really excited for him; we just have to keep him excited! Please, Please pray for him that he can keep up the faith and not fall into any kind of bad temptation of Satan. The ward is getting pretty excited for the baptism; they have a choir ready and everything! Ha-ha - I’m really excited for this weekend, I’ve just got to keep up my faith that everything will work out good. I have this bad thing in the back of my mind, trying to not get my hopes up all the way, because if something happens and he can’t be baptized this week then it won’t be as bad of a letdown. Something that I learned in the conference this weekend was about the faith. Basically you just have to give all of your faith to the Lord and have full hearted faith that things can and will happen for the good. That little small voice of trying to not get my hopes up is GONE. I learned that I have to get my hopes up for things because that’s giving it all of my faith. If I hold a little bit of it back, then that’s holding it away from the Lord, and that’s just not right. 

We know faith is something that we can’t see but we know is there. We can say we have faith all we want, and that we believe in God and Christ, but then we don’t act on it, and that’s not truly having faith and believing is it? If we truly believe in the power of God, we give him our all. We have faith in his power and his abilities to make our weakness strong. We give him the opportunity to help build us up to who we want to be through our confidence in our faith and our actions. Try your faith and pray. If you truly believe and pray for something you can reach it, only if you give it all you have. I know that this is true because I have seen it. 

Two weeks ago we were prepping Vicente for his baptism. He had a baptism date for the 10th and we just got done talking about tithing with him and about the temple.  He accepted it full heartedly. That night he called us saying that he didn’t want to get baptized, that he didn’t want anything to do with tithing and that he didn’t have the money to pay it. He didn’t want to go to church every Sunday and he was angry because he couldn’t enter the temple, and that he would have to wait a year. It just came out of nowhere and we were both crushed. We thought it was all over with him and then our bishop called us. (He is one of the greatest bishops I have ever had.) We told him what had happened and he asked us, “Do you have the faith that he can still be baptized on the 10th?” We were both a little thrown off by that after we had just explained to him that Vicente said he didn’t want it. We just paused and he said, “I know that he will be baptized on the 10th, and you two have that same faith.”  He told us he was ready to be baptized and that we had practice for the choir the next day for Vicente’s baptism, ha-ha! In that moment I really was lacking faith. I was at the end of my rope with my faith and I just didn’t know how to have it. My bishop really showed me that through faith all things are possible. The next day we went back and talked with Vicente, talked though all of his doubts and 3 days later he wanted to be baptized again. I know that through our faith and acting with faith and believing in your faith you too can receive miracles. Whether it be with work, school, or family, you can receive it. I love you all and hope you all enjoyed the conference as much as I did. I wanted to talk about more of the talks but this letter is already long enough! I am so grateful for eternal families and I can´t wait for the day that I can have my own to live with forever. I love you so much and hope you always remember to have the faith. 

Les Amo,
Hermana Velasquez
#pray4vicente