Monday, October 5, 2015

Week 32

Dear family,

Well, it´s been a good week. Lots of stuff has happened. But, I gotta make a disclaimer, which is that I´m kinda sick right now, so I can´t think super well. I´m not like deathly sick or anything, but my mind is supes fuzzy and both my ability to talk in Spanish and to think in English have gone downhill fast. So yeah, hopefully I can remember stuff and explain it kind of. BUT OMGosh, first I also gotta shout out to my main boi Colin for making it onto homecoming court. OMGOSH, WHY ARE YOU SO COOL? I´m actually pretty proud of how popular you are. It´s been an interesting playout of the Ross siblingtrifecta that you´ve really blossomed into the peak of the high school scene, cause let´s be honest, we all know that wasn´t my thing #highschooldropout #kinda

Mas observacions w/ the comp: So Hna Aguilar really is incredibly chill and mas o menos quiet. She has opinions and stuff, but she also is just really normal about them and thinks normally. TBH, I sort of forget how to live with someone that´s really emotionally healthy, so it´s been kind of a weird adjustment. I still feel like I´m readjusting to what my personality even is. But yeah, there´s a lot of silence when we walk/when we´re in the house and stuff. It´s mostly fine with me, on account of I´m really chill with silence, but also sometimes it´s practically demasiado quiet. Also, she has just a really interesting personality. It´s different from anyone I´ve ever spent a lot of time with. Like, she told me this past week, dead serious, "Hermana, I don´t understand jokes. Like, in all situations. My whole life I´ve been this way. If I´m in a group and someone says a joke, everyone will be laughing and I´ll just be sitting there. I just don´t get it." And that´s actually the real truth. So the sacrifice has been more maturity and stability for less humor. Which is fine with me in a companionship, really. Not in friendship/family relationships/dating relationships, but in a missionary companionship, it´s really fine. Things could be a lot worse.

Divisions: So this past Wednesday we had divisions with the hermana leaders. I went out with Hermana Fardos, who went to BYU before the mish and was also companions with Hermana Valenzuela for two changes, so that was chill. She´s hecka outgoing and likes to talk a lot about feelings, which was literally just what I needed. Honestly, this was the first time in months that I had the opportunity to express my feelings in English, and it felt so dang good. And she offered me lots of helpful advice, and I just felt better afterwards. Really. She told me I just need to take everything I´m feeling (and have felt in the past few months), put it at the feet of the Savior, and leave it there. Which is the truth. I don´t know, the mission has just really been a refiner´s fire for me. Like, a lot harder than I ever would have predicted or hoped. And for different reasons than I ever thought. I´ve been really humbled. Like, seriously, I´ve been brought to my knees more times than I can count, and at times I feel like I´ve practically begged God, "Is there no other way?" #Evestatus. But I know that there isn´t, and I will partake. And I´m happy to do it because I know it´s God´s plan for me. I´m not always happy to sacrifice, per se, but I´m obviously willing, and I´m really doing the best I know how. And I know God knows and I know He loves me. 

#ldsconf: Let me tell you, I was stoked for conference. Really, really stoked. Conference is gonna be such a party for the rest of my life. I´ve really gained a deep appreciation of it on the mish. But anyway, we spent practically all week teaching everyone lessons on Prophets, the Restauracion, how to recognize the Holy Ghost, etc. And TBH, I was pretty disappointed with attendance. It coulda been a lot better. Especially with lots of the conversos recientes we´ve been working with, like almost none of them came. Sadz. But on a personal note, it was really good. Not gonna lie, listening in Spanish was kinda hard at times, cause I could hear them talking in English faintly behind, and I was distracting listening to the way they were translating and stuff. Fun fact that´s actually really devestating about learning a new language (for all you who don´t know...), THERE ARE NO DIRECT TRANSLATIONS for like 1,000,000 things! And it´s a real bummer. Because you can´t really say what you want, so you just say the next best thing. Which can get unsatisfying a lot. But yeah, that was reaffirmed to me in conference. The translations just aren´t the same. But it was a good time and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I´ve never had a conference pass by so quickly. It felt like I blinked my eyes and Sunday afternoon session was ending. 

#thecommoncold: So the bad news is that I got pretty sick on around Saturday afternoon, and TBH it limited part of my enjoyment of conference on account of I felt like death. Ok, it wasn´t actually that bad, but seriously my throat hurt SO BAD, and also I just got all the cold symptoms where you can´t think/breathe/are hecka tired, and it was a little rough. I´m still suffering from the same symptoms right now, so yeah, but hopefully it´ll get better in the next day or two. I haven´t really gotten sick at all on the mish though, so I´ve been really blessed. And I don´t really even count this, on account of we´re still working normally and haven´t taken a break or anything. TBH a nap would be really nice, but I never know when it´s merited enough to go in early and not work. The mission´s turned me into a teeeeennnyyy bit of a martyr. Just a littleeeeeee (on account of it´s SO HARD sometimes). But during the break of the two sessions on Sunday I did end up just going outside on the grass with my comp and falling asleep. It was way nice. 

Well, unfortunately it took me like all of my cyber time to write this cause I had to think about it for so long on account of I can´t think. It reminds me of that semester at BYU like two years ago when I got hit way hard with the flu during my midterm week and I took my US history midterm and I LITERALLY COULDN´T THINK and it was all essay responses, and it was so freaking hard to focus. Good times in retrospect. 

Other stuff is that there´s been TONS of watermelon in Horqueta the past week. It´s been sweet. Also, we´ve been trying to do more service projects for people. And guess what the #1 requested service is. That´s right: raking and picking up leaves #thedevil´sownchore. Really though, it makes me laugh every time. 

Also, shout out to the new apostles! I´m stoked!!! Elder Rasband gave one of my favorite talks of all time (The Divine Call of a Missionary, if you´ll remember. I read it literally every day leading up to when I got my mission call.) And also Elder Renlund gave a bomb talk last conference with one of my favorite quotes, which is "One of God´s greatest gifts to us is the joy of trying again, for no failure ever need be final. Even if we´ve been a conscious, deliberate sinner or have repeatedly faced failure and disappointment, the moment we decide to try again, the Atonement of Christ can help us. And we need to remember that it is not the HolyGhost that tells us we´re so far gone that we might as well give up." #eternaltruths

Ok, love you tons and tons!
Hermana Ross

p.s. My notes for conference were in HECKA Spanglish. Exibit A) "The gracias of El Señor is suficiente a llevar a cabo su obra though medio de our leaders (y their debilidades)"

p.p.s. Hermana Valdivia calls me like two times a day just to talk. That´s real. So turns out operation "be best friends with my comp" was a smashing success. It´s been interesting. But it´s cool to see how now all I really feel for that situation is love and gratitude. (ALL THESE THINGS WILL BE FOR THY GOOD (my theme for the cambio))


Filtering water like it´s my part-time job



                              Doing service for Pastora! #cleaningupleaves #thedevil´sownchore

                       In the terminal waiting for a collectivo to Conception #bored #whatcanyado?
             My comp was thirsty and she wanted milk really bad, so she bought this whole thing lolz


                              me in all the WATER. Rain 4 dayz. 

          Us with a menos activa who came to church for the first time in more than two years! #ldsconf


me yesterday during the break in the two sessions of conf when I was feeling so sick I could not even and we just went outside and slept on the grass


Me cooking stuffz

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