Hermana Ross in Paraguay: Week 54

FAMILY!!! COLIN!!

Lolz, so I´ve been freaking out all week, obviously, in light of my baby boo and his imminent mission call. So I haven´t been able to talk about it with anyone (besides God), so all my feelings have just been pent up and kinda close-ish to the surface about it. So I´m watching the video unveiling you sent and as soon as he says Argentina I literally BURST into tears hahahaha. Seriously, like crying super, super hard. But just cause I´m SO EXCITED! Rly rly rly hyped.

So anyway, my vision is kinda blurry, but I only have like freaking 30 minutes to do all my emailing today cause we are going to go clean the temple! I´m so excited!! I haven´t been in the temple in like 11 months. And I haven´t even seen the temple in like 9 months or something. So way too long, essentially. But we gotta take a few different buses to get there, so time is of the essence.

Ight, so this past week started out interestingly bc on P-day we just went to my comp´s old area and did visits all day (aka I have been going hard for two weeks straight without any form of break). It was ok though, and the Lord gave me lots of tender mercies.

We were able to have a few really good lessons with my favorite jovencitas Carmen y Camila, and they are really intelligent and loving. Bad news bears though is that Juan, the investigator that was going to be baptized is now having tons of doubts and the outlooks are not too good as of rn. But I had a cool personal spiritual experience in a lesson with him this past week in which he was just going on and on about a million doubts he has about stuff that doesn´t really have eternal significance at all (aka getting caught up on the little stuff.) And he got pretty intense about it, and the spirit wasn´t really there. And then while he was going on about it, the spirit just whispered to me "don´t do this with your faith." As in, don´t let doubts about inconsequential stuff uproot my faith. Not that I would, but it was still a good spiritual reminder. And I´m sad for Juan, but we´re still trying to help him and work with him to act in faith.

In other news, super great moment of the week was that we had a meeting this week with our ward mission leader, and while we were waiting we decided to play ping pong (my first time in this ward). And there were like 45 boys outside playing soccer (#typical), and it started pouring rain. So they all came inside where we were playing ping pong, and naturally, they all wanted to play and things got real. And we had a competition between everyone that was there, and I won :`) And it was a really great moment in my life on account of there were so dang many jovenes and also like all the bishopric members and stuff that were in the competition.

Alright, well I´d also like to just take a second at the end of this cambio to share something(s) that I´ve learned. There have been a lot of things, but these are the 2 biggest lessons. 1)God loves me, and NOBODY can make me feel differently. Seriously, I dare you to try. And 2) The Atonement applies to ME, and again, nobody can make me feel differently. Like seriously, the lessons I´ve learned this change about divine nature and individual worth just can´t be bought. And as much as I´d have liked to learn them in a different, easier way, I´m grateful that Heavenly Father let me have see a glimpse of how much I´ve internalized these things. Like, my comp can attack my self-worth all day long, and I´m just not buying it. Sure, it is actually a straight bummer and makes me super sad, but I also know I´m a daughter of God and that I have the ability to develop all of His characterisitics (with time and with faith, ya know?)

Ok, I love you so much!!! And I´m seriously so excited about the Spanish club that´s gonna start up A$AP June 2018 (hahahahaha that feels SO far away). But yeah, Rachel and Daddy-o, you guys´ve gotta get on it. South America 4 lyfe.

2muchlove,

Hermana Ross

p.s. We find out changes tomorrow #angstangstangst

p.p.s. We had a super hysterical conversation this week with some members about the story Hanzel and Gretel. And we were talking about it (it has the same name in Spanish), and there was a Brazilian elder who was like "what is that?" And we all tried to explain it and finally he was like, "OH! You´re talking about Juan and Maria!" lololz. So essentially the name is the same in English and Spanish, but Brazil decided to get creative