Feliz Navidad!

What my area looks like. It’s pretty dang ugly, but it’s okay. I’m trying to get used to it. All of the houses look exactly the same and it’s just house after house. But at least the people are really great!

Here's me and Hermana Cabrera when we went to Hunucma.

Feliz Navidad!

Aqui es mi carta/foto por navidad que yo envié hoy para todos pero tangen un buen Navidad! Les quiero mucho!

What we eat when people forget to give us food! Beans and eggs. It was really good though!

Some nativities in centro.

Hello family! Feliz Navidad! 

I’m excited to see you all this week for Christmas! It will be good to see all of your faces! I will only have 45 minutes, so get some good questions or funny things to tell me written down! I’ll be writing you about 6 or 6:30 your time, so get ready with all of your smiling faces! 

So I hope you all were able to give this 7 weeks of change thing a try because I was very blessed for it! This week I studied about the fe y esperanza! I was able to learn a lot of how we have to have confidence in the Lord and His power. And how really the faith, esperanza and caridad really have to work together. There’s a really good talk called The Infinite Power of Hope and it is really good! In a lot of lessons I was able to use a lot of what I studied to help others. A big thing that happened was that Sunday morning the Obispo sent us a message asking if we could share a message in sacrament meeting; mine being on faith. It was pretty perfect actually, being that I had been studying it all week. I really enjoyed this week a lot! I love being with Hermana Cabrera. I really don’t even feel like I’m training her because she is just so good! We felt the spirit in the lessons and we found some really good people. The sad part is that all of them are leaving for vacation for Christmas and they ALL told us that they aren’t getting back til the middle de enero. So we will just have to wait and find some more. 

Well I’d write more but I’ll just tell you all on Friday! Have a great week and please be so safe with all of your travels! I love you lots! Have a wonderful Christmas! 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Velasquez

“The 7 week Challenge to Change”

With Hermana Spencer when she was in the hospital.

With Hermana Cockerham and Hermana Spencer during intercombios.

Some pictures from last week at the Christmas party and me and Raul! He is pretty great and is getting baptized next week!

Hermana Hoggan and me.

Hermano Hipolito and his Son Martin.  It was really hard to say goodbye to him! He’s a good and prepared one!

A cool skirt a member had.

I gave in and got my hair cut by a 17 year old member, but all is well!

I got home and put my hair down and let’s just say that it was VERY unevenly cut, so I just went ahead and fixed it myself....

With Hermana Imelda!

With Hermano Hipolito for our last lesson together!

The family Lopez!

Obispo Poot and his wife.

Saying bye to Hermana Hoggan!

My new daughter Hermana Cabrera!  She’s from the Dominican Republic; she’s pretty great!

Our generation of missionaries that came with us to the mission.

Hello family! 

So, we had changes and I got pushed out of Garcia Gineres and I’m in a new area of Almendros. I am training a Sister from the Dominican Republic and she is really nice! She has a different accent and it’s a little hard to understand her sometimes, but it will just push me more to learn better Spanish! I’m excited to end with someone who doesn’t know English so I can teach her and also so I can learn more Spanish! Hermana Hoggan is still in Garcia Gineres and is training there as well. We were really sad about not ending the mission together and all that, but all will be fine. I think this will really help me not get trunky and keep working hard!

So last week we had a good one. We had the Christmas party and we really enjoyed our last week together. We knew one of us was leaving because President told us one of us would be leaving. On Sunday we were able to go to my old stake house in Pacabtun for the dedication of a temple in Mexico and it was so great because I got to see almost everyone from Pacabtun! They all didn’t recognize me; it was really funny actually! Ha-ha.  They all kept saying how skinny I was and how I needed to eat more and that the people in my other area weren’t feeding me enough! Ha-ha, it was really funny. I was a good 25ish lbs. heavier when I was there, so I probably looked really different to them. 

Also on another note I cut my hair and it was real bad, ha-ha! I am a changed person though, because it looked/looks really bad, but I don’t even care! Ha-ha, I remember how I freaked out when I cut my hair at home, here it’s like nothing and I even had to cut a huge chunk off when I came home! Annie, I will need some of your help when I get home! Ha-ha! It was a good experience! 

So over these next 7 weeks I decided to start something called “The 7 week Challenge to Change”. No it is not a weight loss program. I want to see how much change I can do in 7 weeks. To other people and to myself. I am in a new area with everything new around me and I want to make the best of it. I am going to take attributes of Christ and study one every week. The Faith, Charity and Love, Knowledge, Patience, Hope, Humility, Virtue, Obedience, and Diligence. There are 9, but I’m just going to combine them. Anyway, I know I always invite you guys to do things, but you probably never do them, because you never tell me about it. So I really, really want you guys to do this with me! Just for 7 weeks of your whole life. It’s nothing! You can choose which ones you want to work on and study. But I want to hear how it went in your week when you were able to read a little bit about it and then apply it in your week! Just give it a try and see how it goes! I hope that you all try it and see the CHANGE in your week and in your life as you apply all of them into your life. I know that you will feel Christ more in your life and feel happier and feel a greater love. I love you all and hope that you have a great week! 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Velasquez