Hermana Barton: Estoy Stoked!: November 30, 2015: Vanilla y Chocolate

This week several times people shouted out at the chinas (curly haired crazies) walking by "vanilla y chocolate!"

Last week we went to donate plaquetas (forgot how to say this in English) [*editor's note, aka Amy: plasma?] for one of the girls in our ward who is super sick. After fasting and waiting around all day to help this girl out, the doctor told me I did not have veins to donate plaquetas (because you need bigger veins) so I wanted to donate blood so they could take the plaquetas out of the blood... but when they tested my blood, the doctor told me I had a really low count of plaquetas and couldn't donate... (How am I living without veins or plaquetas?!!) Classic. Out of the 6 of us who went to donate, none of us were capable of donating plaquetas or blood. Super sad for this girl who is in desperate need, but we did what we could!

Yesterday at church, one of the members that we have been working with a lot finally came, Josefina. At the end of the service she was feeling really sick. She asked us to find some water for her and a cup to take a pill. I found a random cup and washed it in the bathroom for her (how kind? but I didn't know what else to do!) and she was able to take a pill. We ended the service and she told me that she had a lot of pain in her chest and right arm, and that she has hypertension.... all the signs of a HEART ATTACK..... She told me that her pill she took would help her and that she was going to drive home. I was not going to let her drive home alone, so we asked one of the ladies in the ward to drive with us in her car to take her home. We all got in the car and started driving, and on the corner of the street of the church Josefina passed out, almost unconscious (doesn't remember any of this). She told us to go to her house and her husband would take her to the hospital. We called her husband on the way to her house so he could come out and go quickly. (We couldn't take her to the hospital ourselves because you have to have papers to be accepted.) We got to her house. Her husband was nowhere in sight! We started banging on the doors and windows, and he finally came out. He went over to his passed out wife trying to wake her up and take her in the house, I was trying to tell him that she was going to have a heart attack and needed to go to the hospital. He was taking FOREVER. Then her daughter came out, who is studying to be a nurse. She took her pulse and said, "Yep, she is having a heart attack." We called an ambulance, and her daughter was going to go with her. And she went into the house for like 20 minutes, then came out in her nurse outfit to go to the hospital. (SERIOUSLY LADY?!!! YOUR MOM IS HAVING A HEART ATTACK AND YOU CHANGE INTO YOUR NURSE OUTFIT?!!)

At this point, the ambulance was not going to come. (They have only two in Hermosillo and told us they were busy...Love Mexico!!!) And I was ready to take the keys from Josefina's husband and take her myself to the hospital...but finally this family got their act together and took their mom to the hospital. Later in the night, Josefina called us and told us that if she had not taken that pill, (if I had not used that nasty cup), she would have had a heart attack and died, and that we saved her life, and "thanks so much!" I really could not believe all that went down. It was crazy!!

Always the craziest things happen when you have two chinas, vanilla and chocolate, lost and crazy somewhere in Mexico!

But things ALWAYS turn out all right if we put our confidence in God, and follow His guide and spirit. Who knows what this week will bring, but I do know that God has a plan for all of us, and I am so happy to be His representative and share His gospel here in Hermosillo!!

Oceans of love to all,

Hermana Barton