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Memories are good. Well, I have the worst memory ever, so sometimes I have to ask my family and friends to remind me of my memories, ha it's weird, but once they remind me, I enjoy remembering.

Memories are a good thing to have and to share, for the most part. There are times, however, when memories make living hard. A lot of my childhood memories are with my cousin, Mo, since he's only five months older than me, we grew up doing a lot together (as I've talked about in previous blogs). Something someone says, or a place I go to, or a song I listen to, little things remind me of a memory with him.

Today, it was a conversation I had with a friend. We were talking about money and how we hate it (probably because we're always lacking it ha) but then I told her, "dude, me and Mo used to talk all the time about how much we hated money and just wanted to live like hippies." Ha. From that memory, then spurred other memories in my mind and they were awesome, fun memories...but part of me was hurting to think about them because I miss making memories with him so much.

Here's a photo of us at a family reunion about a year before his accident:

Here's a photo of us a few months ago:

Hanging out with him now is great, it's amazing to see the progress he's making and talk to him about what's going on...but it's not the same and it hurts. We can't interact the way we used to and things are just different. Life shifts and changes whether we're ready for it or not and sometimes it's a challenge to keep our footing, but we have this hope: And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. -Philippians 1:6 That's pretty good. I know I'm thankful for that promise--for me and for Mo.

One of Mo's favorite songs is "un día a la vez" which means "one day at a time". That's how we gotta keep living. So, I decided to play it for Mo and share it on here...

Funny, I just found this photo I took of Mo by our grandpa's old truck. The writing on the back of the truck says, "el recordar es vivir", which means, "to remember is to live". ha, pretty cool.

Ooo wow, so much to share :) Man guys, this summer has been such an amazing time with life flowing how it does while I'm being just constantly in awe of how Jesus moves in hearts and connects people at the right moments.

I went back to California at the beginning of the summer. I gave tennis lessons for the first three weeks--had group lessons of kids starting from age 4, all the way up to teens and even adults--it was way cool. Then we headed on down to Puerto Peñasco, MX with family and ministry team--twenty-nine people in five vehicles on a fifteen hour drive through the night--pretty awesome:) We hung out on the beach, played sports, had worship on the beach and commissioned out our friend, Pastor Victor Mendez, as he went out to start a new church in Sinaloa, MX. It was a good time.

We also made another separate trip to Mexico a week later. This trip was to Colonia Vicente Guerrero, MX. We had the opportunity to put on a week long conference for seven churches over there. We had a conference for the pastors and their wives--my dad, who pastors the Spanish Service at our church in Modesto, CA led this while my mom and a couple other ladies from our church worked with the ladies. My sister, Sami and I and the rest of our worship team from home led a worship conference every night--we had worship, shared the word and taught them skills. We also had two event nights for the youth where we had a bonfire, watched a movie outside, had worship and shared hope and the inspiration to dream.

Now, I'm back in Houston, TX and reflecting back, I'm just so excited and thankful that I got to see God do such amazing things in people's lives. Being able to be a small part in that reminds me that I gotta stay in the right mindset all the time. I gotta stop thinking about me and what I got going on so much and live more about how I can give hope to somebody. Simple. When we went to Mexico to go to those churches, we saw such an genuine need, like for real. The people were so appreciative of us being there because they said nobody's ever done that for them before. They told us, "thank you for supporting us". I wanna keep doing stuff like this guys. People need. This is really the essence of why we do what we do--in the simple sincerity that people need a reason to hope, believe and love.

We can't waste a moment when we got that reason right here in our hearts.