Hermana Ross in Paraguay: Week 34

Dear family,

First-off, just gotta say I´m so mad jealous about the Mexico trip thing! You guys weren´t supposed to do anything cool without me, remember? REMEMBER?! Haha but I guess it´s ight, because now you guys are more amped for the cruise we´re gonna go on when I get back. That´s a thing, right? Legit when I was with Hna Valenzuela she told me all about the cruises she´s been on and sold me pretty hard on the whole package. So let´s just say I´m down.

Ok, in terms of stuff in Horqueta this week, things were pretty good. I feel like for the first time in my mission thus far I´m really working efficiently, and that´s a good feeling. I mean it´s hard to be completely efficient (actually, it´s impossible and it´s a myth), BUT I do enjoy using time wisely. My comp continues to be super chill and things with her are just pretty normal. I could probably be content to be her companion for a while without having any issues, so that´s a huge blessing. We´ve also been trying to work a ton more with members, which has helped a lot in many aspects of the work. The rama here is honestly so small and has so few truly active members, so really any time we can involve them it helps strengthen both the person we´re visiting and the person helping us do the visits. We´ve also been working on contacting a lot more, which has been my personal goal for a while. TBH it´s just not something that´s been easy for me to do. I couldn´t really even tell you why, and I´ve logic-ed myself through it in a million ways. But anyway, this week we just really worked on having at least 20 contacts (e.g. religious conversations) every day, and there were several days that we hit our goal. So yeah, that´s also helped move the work along.

Also, this week I started reading Jesus the Christ, and it´s been a good time. 10/10 recommend. I´ve been studying so much the past few months about the atonement and Jesus Christ´s sacrifice for us, and I got a lot of good insight from Jesus the Christ. I just started reading at that part and today or tomorrow I think I´ll be finishing the resurrection. I just really feel like I understand and appreciate the atonement so much more than I ever have before. I know the mission isn´t (nor should it be) my personal atonement, but I really do have to confess that it´s been extremely hard for me. But I find so much strength through the example of Christ and how he always put the Father´s will above his own. I could probably/maybe will write a talk or something about this subject, cause I just have a lot of thoughts/a really strong testimony of it. Anyway, sorry I can´t really express myself very clearly because honestly when I talk about the gospel these days it´s significantly easier to do so in Spanish. I prayed out loud in English the other day and honestly it was V hard. I´m pretty sure I´m just going to want to speak in Spanglish for the rest of my life.

Well, I love you tons! Glad you had a fun vacation and are looking SO FINE. But really.

Love 5ever,

Hermana Ross

p.s. "Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whoseoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel´s, the same shall save it." (Mark 8:34-35)

Toucan #typical. But really, there´s a TON of wild birds here. Tons and tons. The things I see in a typical day are some of those things that I just can´t even express the 1/100th part of.