The Coult family came back on the 20^th. When they came to pick me up from Boca del Rio I had the biggest smile on my face and was so happy to be able to speak English with someone standing next to me again. I don’t regret living in Boca for the last 3 weeks, it was just one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I kind of felt like I was just trying to survive, stay cool (both physically and mentally) and keep up the ministry while I was there while interacting with the family. I’m really glad this experience didn’t happen any sooner than it did because I probably wouldn’t have been ready.

I was able to put on the girl’s group night two weeks where we painted nails one night and did braids and hair the other night. After the girls knew that I like doing hair, some have come to me to do their hair for special events and such, which I happily accept because that means I get more time to talk to them. While I was in Boca del Rio I also taught a lot of English. The two kids of the family I stayed with already were doing an English computer program, so the mom asked me to help them with that, pronunciation and I gave them other phrases to learn too. I also took on a student, her name is Maria. Maria is around 17 and will be going to California for a year to visit her father and her family that lives there. She wanted me to help her be able to speak English since she will need to later since the teachers here in Mexico don’t really teach students how to speak English. Once the girls heard I was teaching Maria, mostly everyone wants me to teach them, but that’s not surprising because just about everyone in Mexico wants to learn how to speak English.

Along with girl’s group, we still have been playing a bit of softball on Wednesday nights. All the normal things like youth group, and kid’s class still happen every week.

All in all, I can’t really tell that my Spanish has gotten any better. Some people say it has but for me it’s hard to tell. I’m pretty happy things are carrying on as normal now, as long as I keep doing what God wants me to do.

Its been almost 2 weeks since I moved to Boca del Rio, the small fishing village next to Las Glorias. This has been one of the hardest things I've done so far just because I don't know a ton of Spanish. The first day I was left with the Mexican family at 1pm in the afternoon I just wanted to cry and give up because I didn't know what people were saying half of the time. Days past and I got used to only hearing Spanish, and I am trying to pick up more Spanish. Obviously I'm forced to talk more Spanish and I am learning more but it is super hard when I don't know what a word is, I don't have my cell phone to translate it and they can't play charades or act out what the word means. A lot of the time I won't understand a word and I just have to tell the person I don't understand it, which is really hard to admit because then comes the part where I look stupid. At that point, it doesn't matter that I have 2 college degrees, graduated with honors or anything like that. If I don't understand a word, people look at me like I'm just plain stupid. I've also had people get mad at me for not understanding something. These are the hardest circumstances for me, when I get most depressed, and if it happens too much in one day, I call that a bad day. But, I'm trying to keep my spirits up, am hanging out with the girls, I am enjoying playing sports and youth group. Its getting pretty hot around here, but Its not worth complaining about that yet because I hear it will get worse. I only have one more week here in Boca then the Coults will come back from down south and I will live with them again.