Week 14

Familyyyyyyyy,

What`s up? TBH, I don`t have a whole ton to say this week. I can see where all of missionary life just kind of blends together into a never ending span of time that has no beginning and no end.

Baptisms: SO the biggest thing that happened this week is that we had two baptisms on Saturday. One was of Joel, our investigator who is SO sweet and was SO ready to get baptized. The other was of an eight year old girl named Kimberly Nicoll in our ward who is from a menos activa family, but the dad is an RM and such. Technically the family is supposed to be in charge of her baptism, but they pretty much just had us as the missionaries do everything on account of people in Paraguay don`t really know how to do work/make stuff happen. Anyway, so her baptism is supposed to start at 3, but the bishop was like two hours late and there were like twenty people waiting and it was just REALLY bad PR. I would go into more detail, but it would end up just being me complaining at how unorganized everything is here. So I`ll just sum it up and say it was quite frustrating and my comp was maybe even more frustrated than me, so it was a high key unfortunate situation. Then in the evening it was Joel`s baptism, which went much more smoothly, but I was already in kind of a weird mood, so that was a bummer. But it was sweet and everything worked out in the end.

Lessons from the mish: So I continue to learn lots of lessons pretty consistently from being here. There are just so many and I try to write them down when I think about them, so I have a running list. I forgot my list at home today, but it`s pretty solid. One of the biggest things I`ve learned so far is that I am learning to do things I`m not "ready for." I am naturally predisposed to be a cautious person, and so I feel like my whole life I`ve always tried to take opportunities as they come up, but have also tried to "prepare" for them super thoroughly. I don`t really like to put myself in situations where I`m going to be on the spot/unprepared (who does, amirite?), but I always kind of viewed it as a limitation in my life because I just lived with more fear/anxiety than I needed to. Since being here I`ve literally had to do 1,000,000 uncomfortable things (every day), and I can pretty much never anticipate them. And of course with Spanish, I always sound like an idiot and can pretty much not plan in what situations I`m going to have to speak in/what I`m going to have to say. Even just the other day I had to talk to our district leader on the phone and I was like freaking out. Which is dumb, because he`s nice and there was literally like 0 pressure, but I just feel so stupid when I can`t understand what people are saying/can`t think of how to respond, etc. But anyway, because I have to do so many uncomfortable things here/without planning ahead, I really feel like I`m gaining that as a life skill. I sort of feel like I am going to be able to go back and do anything (mas o menos) without worrying about it too much beforehand. It`s just kind of what the mission forces you to do. Anyway, I don`t know if this makes perfect sense, but I just feel more ready to do stuff I`m not ready for #marriageprep #lifeprep. 

Losing myself: So something I was talking to Hermana Valenzuela about this week is just the continuing feeling I have that I have no personality and don`t even remember what it`s like to be in a situation where I can be myself/when people like me. It`s not that people don`t like me here, per se, but just that no one knows me because I can`t speak their language, and then even with other missionaries that speak English I feel like I just forgot how to be sociable and cool. And I was expressing all of this to her and saying that I just don`t even remember what it`s like to "feel cool" or even super useful as a person. And then she said that the exact same thing happened to her the first few months of her mission, and she felt like she just was a totally different/more boring person and just kind of lost herself. And THEN, she said over time and continued effort in missionary work, she eventually found herself again. And she felt like she was awake for the first time in her life, and that before the mission she`d just been asleep and now she finally knew who she was/what the gospel was. And the way she said it all of it just finally connected in my mind with the whole gospel concept that you have to lose yourself in order to find yourself. DUH. And I`m in the "losing myself" stage, but I really believe that eventually I will come through on the other side with increased gospel knowledge/life skills. It`s kind of hard to write about spiritual/mental breakthroughs in such a short amount of time, but I hope you get the gist of what I`m saying. So anyway, I`m not past this trial yet, but I`m working through it and really believe that it will all work out in God`s timing. (I think the scripture I`m specifically thinking of is in Matthew, but I found another one in Luke 9:24 that says "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.)

I love you all so much!!! I hope you have a great week and also Mom/Colin have 2 much fun in Hawaii. Imagine the weather there but like level x10 more humid and you have me in Paraguay. Good news is it`s starting to get closer to winter here, so it`s not actually cold, but it`s getting less hot. And there have been a few days that are rainy/chilly, so that`s cool #pray4Holly

Keep it real, 

Hermana Ross

Baptism of Kimberly Nicoll

Baptism of Joel

Baptism of Kimberly Nicoll

Jessica Martinez

Trees and Flowers