Day 2: First day in Santa Ana

Hello everyone!

Today was our first real day of hard work and to top it all off, it was in the scorching sun of Santa Ana! We headed over to this small community this morning at 8 AM. We got to the church that we will be attending this coming week, Casa de Bendicion. It is such a beautiful place, with a whole bunch of flowers, they are just so gorgeous!

After meeting up with the pastor, youth pastor and some of the kids, we headed over to a field where we would be setting up our "Olympic games".  Once we got to this field, there were already so many kids there, ready to play with us. They played a short soccer game and once it was over, we headed to Pollo Campero for some lunch. Gabby Whelan said it was some amazing chicken!

Once we got back from our lunch break, we set up our Olympic games. I will admit, it was a bit unorganized and confusing, but we managed to make it work out. Either way, the kids had an awesome time and that's all that really mattered to us.

The heat got to some of us, and it was a bit annoying. We were all sweating buckets in our jeans (not happening ever again, no more jeans for us!) and pressing our cold water bottles to our foreheads to keep cold for a few seconds. The heat hit some of us pretty hard, and also some lack of sleep which made us pretty cranky and just plain lazy. At the end of the day, we made it all work our for the children and worked together to somewhat get back on track.

Throughout the day, some of us made some adorable, little friends. We met some of the cutest and sweetest little boys and girls, that we immediately fell in love with them. They are all just so precious, we wanna take 'em back home with us! We just kept asking for more and more abrazos y besitos (hugs and kisses). 

Even though it was kind of a rough day, and some of us got a bit irritated, we still work it out as a whole and manage to focus on our mission, which is to serve our Father.

Thank you all back home for your prayers and wonderful messages. We hope you're all doing well and that you are enjoying your summer. God bless you all!

- Gabriela and the team.