Hermana Ross in Paraguay: Week 38

Dear Familyyyy,

I have 2 much to say this week. It was a dang good week. So many things. Honestly it kicked off with last p-day, which was pretty fun in Conci and my comp and I went to a pretty cool restaurant after cyber actually, and then we bought ice cream together #compdate. Having a chill comp makes 150% of a difference. Open communication is wonderful 10/10 recommend.

District meeting: So true fun fact is that our district is now comprised of all missionaries from the states!!! That´s cray and super rare. Honestly, it´s a pretty good time. And Hna. Cranney (the senior Hermana) still doesn´t know Spanish, so it´s seemed to help her a lot as well that we now talk in English quite a lot. Anyway, this past district meeting was V good. Our mission president gave us this new study curriculum where we are all now having to study the exact same things as every missionary in the mission during personal and companionship study. TBH at first I was kind of distraught, cause study time was supposed to be "our time." Or at least our time to use how we wanted to in terms of studying for other people and stuff. But anyway, it hasn´t been as bad as I thought, although the jury is still out on whether or not I´m a fan. BUT one of the things we have to do with this new program is prepare a talk every week that we could be randomly called to give during district meeting/zone conferences, etc. So I prepare my talk super briefly but am pretty much hoping I don´t get called on during district meeting. But as we are walking to the church, I run over a few ideas with my comp, and she´s like, "Hermana, I really hope you share. I´m gonna make it happen." Noooo haha. But then we get to district meeting and our DL puts all of our names on little slips of paper and then my comp gets to pull one of them out Hunger Games status to see who´s going to give their talk. And she looks at me and we both just knew she was going to pull my name. I mean, she couldn´t see whose was whose or anything, but it was 2 fitting when she ended up pulling my name. The spirit switched the name on the paper, I swear. So anyway, I end up giving my talk and it actually went pretty well. One of those "guided by the spirit" moments. And then the rest of district meeting was also just very good and after about 15 minutes everyone gave up with the Spanglish and we just did the rest in English hahaha. It was pretty sweet, actually #daydreamsofstatesidemissions

The week at a glance: So this week was pretty good. We did a lot of preparing Sara for her baptism, lots of helping my comp get to know the area, etc. Good stuff. I honestly like my comp so much. She´s so nice and so open and really cares about me and my feelings, which is so nice. Honestly the biggest problem we´ve had so far is that we can´t get to bed on time because we just want to stay up talking. Talk about a dream problem, amirite? But seriously, we´ve had lots of #realtalks and we are both helping each other a lot. We´re just coming from very different mission experiences but somehow meeting in the middle with very similar feelings about all of it.

Sara´s baptism!: It honestly went really well. The spirit was there, the talks were good, the elders and my comp and I did an acapella musical number (I was soprano//you´d be proud), and she was way happy. And this is the baptism that I´ve felt the most connected to in my whole mission because I was able to teach her all the lessons start to finish. Like, I know converts are always the Lord´s and not ours, but it´s always nice to feel like you played more of a role, ya know? So yeah, that went really well and she´s so presh. Then afterwards my comp and I got dinner together to celebrate and it was way fun. Except for that the server was a wayyy intense Evangelico and he preached to us for like 15 minutes straight about hell before he would take our order #Paraguayprobz. Oh, and also during this dinner they were playing some music in this restaurant that was in English and I´m assuming pretty popular in the states, and I was like "I haven´t heard any of this... Oh my gosh." I hear a pretty decent amount of music on the streets, but in Horqueta it´s a lot of common for it to be in Guarani or in Portuguese. But I didn´t realize how much I´ve become out of the scene with stuff from the states. Really, really out of it. I guess that´s good, on account of I know I´m a real missionary now lolz. (p.s. But they did play what I think is a new song by Adele and it was V good. Like, V V good #9months #tranquinottrunky).

So yeah, those are the highlights. Honestly I felt like I had a lot more to say, but I didn´t journal at all this week (danggitttt), so I´m coming up blank on if there was anything else... But overall things are good and I feel so normal again it´s crazy. Oh yeah, we also all had breakfast at the Cranney´s today, and it was bomb. They made us french toast with syrup (the most American thing I´ve eaten in 5ever) and we were all talking in English and I seriously had a moment where I was like "Is this what a mission in Washington or something would be like all the time? This is the dream." Hahahahah but then we walked back out into the POURING RAIN and RIDICULOUS HUMIDITY and I actually felt very, very grateful to be on my mission in Paraguay. Everyone gets a mission that´s going to help them grow, but I really, really feel like I needed to come to Paraguay. I just need to have a mission that´s hard for me in a lot of ways. And that´s a very good thing to accept, you know? I´m 2 grateful.

"Thank you Mr. Gardener, for loving me enough to cut me down."

(See this link for the story behind this quote reference she makes:

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2002/03/the-currant-bush?lang=eng )

xoxo

Hermana Ross