Happy 2016!

A member gave me a Costco size bag of globitos! I was soooooo excited! I LOVE these things; they don’t have them at home I believe, so I’m just going to love & cherish them while I’m here.

Raul’s baptism!

We cooked on Christmas.

I made Hermana Cabrera wear these all day on Christmas while we were in the house. She clearly loved it!

Me and my companion on Christmas.

Hello family! Happy 2016! How weird is that!? This year went by so fast! 

So I was reading in this letter I wrote to myself last year and it was really funny. In the letter it said “well, I hope you’ve got the language down by now because you know nothing right now of Spanish” ha-ha. It also talked about how hard it was a year ago and how I hope I’m happy with all that happened this past year and how I hope I’m happy with where I am now. And I really liked reading that. I really do feel so happy and blessed with the year that I have had here in Mexico! I have NEVER learned so much in one year like I have in 2015. I really hope I can keep that up for this year. I don’t know if that’s possible, but I’m going to try! 

This week was a little hard for us because NOBODY was home for the appointments that we had planned for this week. So we walked a lot and talked with lots of people in the streets. New Year’s in this area was a lot calmer than last year! Everyone was shut in their house having their parties rather than last year all in the streets yelling and lighting off fireworks! It really didn’t feel like it was New Year’s, but all went well and it was LOTS better than last year. It really does depend on your attitude on how you want things to go. We may have not found everyone that we had planned on this week but we did have some great experiences! 

On Saturday we were looking for this part member family and we went to the house that we thought was them, but it wasn’t and they didn’t really help us to find her house either. We were about to turn and head back but then my companion saw her house number so we ran over, yelled at her house, and then she came out all surprised to see us. It was this young girl; she’s like 24 and she is a less active member. She invited us in and at first it was a little uncomfortable because she didn’t know what to say and it was just weird. When we started with the lesson it all got better. We taught her about the Santa Cena and the atonement and it was pretty perfect for her. She told us that she hasn’t gone to church for a while and that she had felt that Heavenly Father had left her and forgotten about her, and when she needed him the most we showed up. It was really cool to hear that and to see that the Lord once again put us in the right path to find her. She is really great just a little lost, and just needs a little guidance to get back. She is excited to get back to church. We also have this other less active family that we found that came to church this week and we were soooo excited to see them there and the members were too! I really have learned a lot this week. First the Lord is NEVER going to forget about us. He is aware of us and all of our needs. He wants us to be happy and he wants us to come back and live with him. So therefore he WILL put people in our path to help bring us back, or to help give us answers or guidance. We just need to be willing to accept his help and act on it. The other thing I learned this week in my studies about the charity and love was really how to love people like the Lord loved us and everyone else, even those people that hated him and crucified him. People will do us wrong or offend us, we just have to love them and if we don’t we’ve just got to pretend we do until we actually love them. I love you all very much and hope that you have a great year and make great goals for this year to come! I love you all! Have a great week! 

Con Amor, Hermana Velasquez