Hermana Ross in Paraguay: Week 70 (Birthday Week)

Family!!!!

Well, first things first is that I'm using Colin's missionary email for this, so that's weird. Life happens.

Anyway, NGL this week was kinda a hard one. Maybe I was just having sympathy angst for Colin or something, but my animo was just kind of low and it was pretty hard for me to find the hecka intense motivation needed to be a missionary. I was just thinking about how apparent all of my weaknesses still are to me (you know, the sins that so easily beset me and such), and I was reminded of something the RaeBae wrote to me like a year ago back when I was having my charity probz lolz. Anyway, she said, "Maybe you’ve founda bit of a weakness, a force which you would need to motivate you beyond yourself on your mission. Well, no shame, no guilt, now is the time to develop it free of worldly distractions! Everyone has something/many many many things to work on and isn’t it such a blessing that for some of us, Heavenly Father intervenes and literally snatches us up and puts us on a little testing plate (like in those science labs where they grow bacterias and stuff) where we can just develop those Christlike attributes that will make us not only closer to living with our Father in heaven, but happier in this life too?? After this mission you will be SO SO SO much happier for the rest of your life.

Do not overthink it. You have probably already grown leaps and bounds and will continue to do so. Honest. I swear there were things I struggled with (like personal weakness) my whole mish that I was like, um, I’m getting nowhere on this. But now that I’m home I can totally see where I have improved. Because the mish is extra hard, even though you might not necessarily see improvements out there, when you get home, it’s suddenly so much easier."

So I had shared this with Hna Lundberg back when we were comps, and we both really connected to the whole "mission is a science lab of Christlike attributes" concept. So I was talking to her this week one night that I was just feeling kinda down on myself, and I was mentioning to her about the fact that I feel like the mission brought out a bunch of weaknesses that I didn't really even know I had, and/or I knew I had them but they were pretty minor. And then she brought that example back to my mind and was like, "OF COURSE you see all of your weaknesses as so much of a bigger deal right now. WE ARE UNDER A MICROSCOPE!!" And it was a very good reminder, ya know? That GOD gives us our weaknesses (#Ether12:27), and that everything from God we will come to love (#Luke11:9-13). So I will come to love my own weaknesses. And I really really believe that.

But the week finished out SUPER well on Sunday and we had FIVE investigators come to church. It was really awesome. And I gave a talk and it went well and it was just a good day. AND as of this past week, Hna Torres and I have OFICALLY contacted more than 1,000 people together!!! Much people. Many Spanish.

So things are really good and today has been an awesome P-day. We bought some cool recuerdos and had lunch in my comp's old area and it was just a fun time. So I`m still doing super well and and so so so content where I am in life right now. Really tho. It`s extremely awesome and I hope I can have this feeling of contentment with me for like a large part of my life.

Love you so much!!!! Thanks for all your support and love.

Harts,

Hermana Ross

p.s. It`s officially my birthday week, so things are getting real