Bananas, baby birds, bonding and blessings...

With Martin and Fatima. We teach them in this little tienda and it takes awhile because we have to pause when people come in, but it’s worth it! They are super great.

Jose Juan Santos de Dios.  He is the convert that got baptized in May.

A baby bird! He's just a tiny thing!

I got to cut down bananas from a banana tree the other day!

Que honda Fam?

I’m learning some pretty good "slang" from my new companion.

So this week lots of good things happened! As a mission we are trying to focus more and more on the menus activos in the areas. I really like working with them a lot! We found some menus activos this week and they have a lot of need for help, but they are wanting to come back so this is good! 

My new companion and I are still doing really well together! She is teaching me lots and I hope I’m doing the same for her! I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m out to get her though. In this week I hit her in the face with a door, jammed her hand in a desk, and here’s the bad one: sprayed perfume in her eyes -- directly into her eyes. It just came out and I felt soooo bad! She just went screaming to the bathroom “Mi ojos! mi ojos!” She came out and couldn’t open her eyes for like 5 minutes. I just sat there in silence staring at here. I felt so bad! Afterwards she just laughed about it so we’re all good! 

We had a good lesson with Martin and Fatima this last week. We taught them about the plan of salvation. Hermana Fatima got a little freaked out by it and was saying that she thinks that she won’t get to go to the reina celestial. We calmed her down and she accepted it! Martin is pretty great; every time we go he says. “So when I’m a Mormon....” or “when I go on my mission...” It’s pretty great! He’s a golden boy. His dad is catolico and doesn’t really like the missionaries very much, but he will come around! I love teaching them so much. I can always feel the spirit so much in the lessons with them. They are always so interested in what we have to tell them, and are just progressing so well! People like them just make me love being a missionary! 

We also went and contacted this reference and she was a lady with about 80 or more years and she was kinda crazy, but the sweetest thing ever. She was telling us how she had visions and would start talking in other languages. She called it the gift of tongues. After she told us that, she started to pretend like something was talking through her to us in a different language, and then her daughter came out and was like “mom, why are you doing this again?” With an annoyed look on her face, like her mom does this all the time to people or something...  She just looked at her daughter then at us and just smiled with shrugged shoulders. I just started laughing, ha-ha! 

Yesterday we had this member come out with us. We went looking for a reference for like an hour, cuz this lady was so determined that we were going to find this reference. She was like “okay, chicas, let’s go find this person.” She would go up to people and ask them if they knew this direction (the direction we had was really bad and it wasn’t complete so it was impossible to find them) and then if they didn’t know she would just walk away super-fast and go find a different person to ask, then that person would tell us a street, we would go to that street, then it ended up being the wrong street. We then went to this tienda to ask someone. There was a table and chair where the person was sitting. She pulls up another seat and sits with him and asks the direction and if he knows where it is. He didn’t know either, so she got up, but I wanted to contact him. We started contacting him and telling him about the church, then she just says with her strong voice “oh my gosh, you girls are so cute -- you’re contacting him -- that is so funny.” We all just kinda looked at her and then she felt a little awkward, ha-ha - it was all fun and funny. She was a great help to us, and she would make a good determined missionary! Ha-ha! 

This week was great and we are working hard here, and I am just loving it all so much! I hope you are all doing so great and are enjoying summer! I love you all so much and hope you can all continue to feel the love that the Savior has for you! Thanks for the letters! 

Love, Hermana Velasquez