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