Verdadero Amor

Blessings in the only name that is worthy enough to be praised, JESUS CHRIST!

It has been a busy month of June so far but an amazing one it has been!

First of all- a birthday updated!!! I'm older ha ha and still feel the exact same- gracias a Dios jaja!

I had an amazing birthday filled with people who just loved on me. Thanks to all to who really made my birthday special by sending me birthday cards, phone calls, texts, and etc! I have also learned that i am certainly blessed to have amazing friends in Puerto Rico. God really does provide EVERY need even when it is just to have special people in your life. Thanks to all my amigos y amigas in Puerto Rico who took their time to make my day of birth amazing! Here are a few fun pictures from the fun festivities that took place :)

Doy gracias a mi Dios siempre que me acuerdo de ustedes. Filipenses 1:3

* i love these people and i am so thankful for their friendships*

1 John 4:7-12

⁷Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth

⁸He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

⁹In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

¹⁰Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

¹²No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

This was the scripture we really looked at this past weekend at the CODA youth retreat. I love this passage, it really helps us to dig and understand why we ought to love one another, it is because HE LOVED US FIRST! HE is our TRUE and ULTIMATE LOVE. It doesn't matter what things we fill our lives with- in the end the only thing that will FILL US and satisfy us is God. This weekend, i feel that we all took something different away- i pray that these youth got to see young adults who are in LOVE with Christ. That we would give our lives to our KING and serve Him and others. To show these youngins what it looks like to love one another and to tell them we do this because He loved us first! There is still so much to be taught to these youth so many little things that are so simple but so complex to understand. Such as, why would Jesus come, perfect, and decide to take every single mistake (sin) we done put it on Himself so we could be clean, pure, and spend eternal life with Him in Heaven? BECAUSE HE LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES LOVES US X million billion trillion. :) That is true love.

Overall, Filling up on the word of God, playing tons of games, midnight water pranks on the guys (which the girls won every single game- in my opinion we did) ha ha, and playing volleyball in the middle of the ocean (yes, in the middle in a sand dune)- it was amazing- it's okay to be jealous. We all got to learn lessons of how to forgive, resolve conflicts instead of avoiding them, and to truly get along with each other. Among the chaos, unexpected events, late late bedtime hours, 3 languages to figure out and the tears- God was shown this past weekend. I am so thankful for my friends who came to help me with these youth. It means the world to me to know that i have people here i can call on- and they are there! Like Vilmarie said, "Even though we have known each other for such a little time, i feel like we all have known each other FOREVER" but she said that in Spanish ja ja. I am so thankful, so blessed, and so humbled in all that God has done. I can not do this on my own- but with God i can.