By the Grace of God

HELLO!!!!!!!!

This week has probably been the strangest week of my entire mission experience. I'll start by saying that this week I got packages from family! THAT WAS AMAZING! I really needed a pick me up. One of the packages had jerky in it...REAL HONEST TO GOODNESS AMERICAN JERKY! Halleluiah! I needed that sooo much! They don't have jerky here and it's hard to find snacks that are high in protein so this was such a blessing!

Also, last Monday I got stung by a bee for the first time in my life. NOT happy Bob, NOT happy. I was taking down my clothes from the clothes line, grabbed a shirt, and then felt something a tiny bit painful. I flicked my hand thinking it was probably a thorn or something, then the pain increased and I saw something dark and tiny on my hand, so I flicked my hand a bunch thinking it must be a spider and danced around saying ouch trying real hard not to swear or anything. The pain kept getting worse, it burned like heck! I looked down at my hand and realized it was the stinger of a bee. I pulled it out, and asked my companion to run and get my essential oils. I have never been stung by a bee before, so I was not sure which one to use, so for the moment I used lavender. Then later I went down into our apartment and looked up in my little oil book what to use. It said chamomile.  Well I don´t have that, so I went and asked one of the members who we live with if she had any te de manzanilla. They didn't, but they got me some and made a sort of poultice, and that helped. The sad thing is a week later it still itches and is a bit swollen. Fun. LOL

​My companion and I in a moto-taxi FUN!

On Thursday, I did splits with another Hermana who is from Argentina. It was AWESOME! We were in my area and for the day I was senior comp! WAHOO! I did it, and I did it well. We got a few references...I can´t remember what the word is in English. One of our menos activa sisters gave me two cute little cacti and some other plants. I really love one of my cacti because it looks like a bunny.lol! Contacting with this Hermana was an adventure...ok I was a bit scared by her tactics. She would go up to someone who was walking, stick her hand out and really loud and say, "HOLA, WE ARE REPRESENTITIVES OF JESUS CHRIST!" I was all like whoa girl cool your jets! When I contact, I always act calm and say"Excuse me, we're missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints....." So yeah what fun!

This week we also ran out of gas so we have been having to heat water with a livestock water heater in a bucket and shower with that. I actually kinda like it , except it takes FOREVER!

Also, last Monday I made "chocolate chip cookies" with a family. Well they would have been great except they don't sell brown sugar here. NICE! So we made the cookies but with only white sugar. They were something like sugar cookies... I did not like them much, but everyone else LOVED them. I am hopeing that today I can make No-Bake Cookies. YUM! The nice thing about no-bakes is that I know they sell all the ingredients here. Speaking of cooking, I am adding to my cookbook so if y'all have some really good, easy(not super time consuming) recipes that you wouldn´t mind sending to me that would be great!

Some really sad stuff happened this week. As of this moment, I don´t feel like talking details. For the first time in here in Mexico, excepting Mothers day, I cried, but the neat thing was I told myself I only had an hour to be sad and then I had to be happy. I decided this, and wow I got done crying and then kept myself to that personal promise and I have been pretty happy. Don't worry, what happeneded was nothing serious or anything to be worried about, it was just sad for me.

Anyways on the happy side, I have also been working on Personal Progress! It has been a REALLY neat experiance! I have been learning so much, it has made me really think about what kind of person I want to be, and how I can be the best mother to my future children. Sometimes I feel like I am cheating a bit because parts are SO easy as a missionary, like invite someone to church, etc. LOL. It's funny because our neighbor is a YW leader, and so we have her check our stuff off, and she is really strict about things and reads our Personal Progress journal to make sure we did all that we were supposed to. HA! Well mine is all in English so she has me translate, uggh! But hey, it's really good practice! I also learned the 13th Article of Faith in Spanish! NICE!

This is not totally up to date. I have done more since taking this picture! :)

Random fact of the day: I am addicted to yogurt! Before my mission I hated yogurt, and the thought of plain yogurt made me want to hurl, but now plain is my favorite and I eat it ALL THE TIME!

By the grace of God (there was no other way)
I picked myself back up (I knew I had to stay)
I put one foot in front of the other
And I looked in the mirror and decided to stay~Katy Perry

This is my life story. When things get tough I pray, and then tell myself I can do this, and keep going. This week this was me a ton! LOL.  I feel like I am constantly repeating myself, but I guess that is what God is trying to teach me, to trust in him and then do my part.

Well that's my week at a glance! Until next week! Love y'all Hermana Shingleton XOXOX