9 months!!! Half Way!

Hello family,

First off...................HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!......................I sure hope you know how much I love you and I was thinking about you all day on the 20th. Second off I told Kara the date of when I will be coming home because I wanted to make sure that she doesn't make any special dates before this date. But just so you all know the day that I will be coming home is the 20th of November. I will be in the offices the 19th, my last day. It really is a great blessing. I will be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. because the next change is the 31rst of December. Blessings. So many things are happening. 

Today I had someone cut my hair for the first time since coming to the mission. It was bad I really needed to get it cut. And she cut off a good chunk of hair. But its all good. Its different but it works. I was scared to have her cut it. She had a huge necklace with Mary on it and a huge bracelet with the cross and her hair was bright pink. But I told her what I wanted and it didn't turn out so bad. With the heat I like that its a little bit shorter. But don't worry mom its still long. 

This week we had the open house and received 18 references for our area, and right now we have a total of 20 or more references that we need to contact. The young women are helping us a ton!!!!! Its so crazy to hear that all of these young boys are putting in their papers. I don't know how i feel about that. And i don't know who Erin is but is she here in Paraguay. She is going to love it here. I don't know if I want to leave this beautiful place. 

Yesterday I completed 9 months in the mission and I can't believe it. I'm seriously in shock at how fast the time has gone. I will be home before I know it. We are working hard and I'm trying to do my best. In two weeks we will be having cambios (Transfers). I'm not 100 percent sure what will happen to me because the two of us came to this area at the same time. I just know that something will change because we are in training and after training they change to companions.  Today is a little different because it is the first day of school for the kids here in Paraguay. They all heading back after their summer break. And I start to think about it I'm like oh wow I bet Trent and Jared are excited to go back to school.......and then I remembered that they are in school and that there is snow on the ground. hahaha Its different. 

But things are great in the mission. I'm loving it. Remember when I wrote you all those first letters and it was all like, I just want to speak the language, and its difficult. hahaha I can"t speak English at all, I'm so accustomed to waking up at 6 30 that my body wakes up 30 minutes before. I hit the bed and I'm out. ha ha the mission is great. But I love you all so much. My companion is going to let me send some pictures to you guys so the letter is a little shorter this week. And by the way I don't know how Trent knew the date  would be coming home but OK..... ha ha.

Love you all,

Hermana Ross

My finger is pointing to my apartment window.  Yes, it is on the 5th floor.

This is me and my companion after being caught in a hot rainstorm.

Open house at our church house.  This is where they open the church to show the people what the church is all about.
We have 18 references because of this! Yeah!

9 months!! Half way!  Not sure about this!

I only have half of my mission left......‏

I cant believe everything is happening super fast. I only have three more weeks in this area with my companion. I have no idea what will happen after these three weeks end. Sorry that my letters are getting shorter and shorter, but yours are also getting shorter and shorter.... ha ha. This Sunday I will have completed 9 months in the mission. The half way mark. I don't know how I feel about that. This Saturday is when we will have this open house again but in our ward. It will be pretty awesome.  This last week was good. We had three people that came to church Sunday. But not one of them wants to accept a baptismal date. That or they cant because they aren't following those commandments. I feel like for the sure the second coming is going to happen while I'm in the mission because I am only seeing how many people aren't willing to keep the commandments of God. We also have found a ton of people who are members but less actives. We find about one for every single day. 

So dad you had some questions. It is about the same number of Latins as Americans for sisters. For elders i think there are more Latins. but I'm not a hundred percent sure about that. I'm sure one day i will have an American companion but I like having the Latin companions. When we do contacts they seem to be more receptive to listen to my companion than to me because she is Latin and she looks like she could be from Paraguay. A lot of times the moment I say I'm from the states they put the stereotypes. RICH; AND HERE TO PREACH TO GET MONEY!!! How wonderful it is when the people say this to me that I can turn to my companion and she can testify that this is false and that we are here to preach the gospel. Not here to get money. I don't know why they have lunch and not dinner. It is their customs. And after they eat they sleep. The hour of siesta nobody is out and about. NAP TIME!!! These hours are from 12 to 4. And it is so true. Everyone sleeps. We eat a lot of the food typical of Paraguay. But usually this consists of A TON OF MEAT!!!!!! and rice or pasta to go with it. I am telling you I never ever ever want to eat pasta again in my life. I'm so sick of it. hahaha. But very few have vegetables and I'm not going to lie I miss it. Eating healthy. I have to eat what they give me. The last two days we had BBQ with rice. Its so good but its so fattening. And the members in this area are so used to feeding elders, and here come the hermanas and they think that they should be able to eat the same amount. 

Right now we have a sister who washes our clothes for 70 mil guaranies for the month. She is trying to save her money because her daughter will be heading into the mission field in one month to Chile. I don't feel bad paying her that amount to wash my clothes and iron them and fold them. It makes me happy that i don't have to wash them in the sink. Did I tell you guys what happened to some of my clothes when they were hanging to dry on the balcony. The winds came down and my clothes flew away. Well only one shirt flew away. My companion came into the room laughing and told me that the shirt was gone for good. It fell 5 stories and landed in a field where a couple of dogs made it their new chew toy. Oh well that's what I get for putting my clothes out there to dry. Sickness..........hahahaha um I think this topic is best kept for after the mission.... ha ha but lets just say I'm super blessed. My blessing says that i will have the strength and health to do the things the lord has called me to do. I have seen this part of my blessing in the mission.

There are tons of different types of birds here. And the difference is that they are tropical. I"ve met people that have toucans for pets. Its pretty crazy.  And the members are good with the missionaries if the missionaries are respectful to them. This is what i have seen the most. I haven't had any problems but i have seen members that don't have much respect for those missionaries because they aren't doing their job. And the bad part about that is if one missionary isn't doing his job the members see it and then they think that no missionary is doing their job. This  is when we need to remember that we are representatives of Christ. I have to be so grateful for the respect that we have from those members as sister missionaries. 

So nothing new is really happening. I don't have much else to tell you all but I love you guys tons and I hope to hear more of how things are going in the cold of Utah. 

Love you all tons,

Hermana Ross

My love for the Gospel and for you guys!

Hello Family!

How are things going, things here are good, just working. This week we didn't see as big of miracles as we did the last week but we keep going. Sounds like you guys are dying of cold. And I'm still dying of heat. Ive been told that it doesn't begin to cool down till about March. So we will see what is going to happen. I'm pretty sure that in three weeks I will be transferred from this area. So we are trying our hardest to have those baptisms that we want to have. This week we saw a lot of rejection. We had to do a lot of proselyting to try and find new people to teach because a lot of those that we have been teaching aren't progressing. It was the first time that my companion was really rejected in the mission. It was really hard for her and  could see that but it didn't bug me as much as it did when I was first starting. So Ii have a story to tell you and you guys aren't even going to believe that I would do something like this but I did it. 

So last Monday we were teaching two investigators that really weren't progressing. Sometimes as sister missionaries we are so nice and loving that the people don't understand the importance of the message we were teaching. The investigators that we were teaching don't want to get married right now. They always say, in the future..... AHHHHH I hate those words. But anyways I finally got to the last straw and I started to think about what I should tell them to really let them think about what was important. I started teaching them about the second coming. And my companion and I started reading the scriptures about how the day when Christ comes is close by, and how if Christ came tomorrow if they could tell him that they were ready and obeying all of his commandments and if they wouldn't feel one bit of guilt to see the prints in Christ hands and to see the prints of his feet. Then the two of us testified that we knew that Christ will be coming again to cleanse the earth of all sin and that the commandments of god should not be procrastinated and that we were here to teach them this, not just a nice little message. The spirit was so amazingly strong!!!! we left them to really think about it. And right now they are progressing a little bit more. Ha we will see what happens. We do a lot or proselyting and the members are the basis of all the work. If the members aren't willing to help us we have nothing in the work. We spend about 4 or 5 hours teaching and 2 or 3 hours proselyting. Depends on the day. We are trying to find new people to teach right now so its a little different. Its crazy how many people are less actives here. We find about one every single day. But we keep going. 

I hope you all have a wonderful valentines day. Its really pretty crazy to think that in two weeks I'm halfway done with the mission.I cant believe it, it passes by so amazingly fast. I sure hope that all of you are trying to help and support those missionaries. you should give them one of your home made meals mom. It doesn't matter what. But I'm sure those elders are sure tired of roast and potatoes. Maybe something different. But I would kill for a nice Sunday dinner right about now. I have about half of my deodorant left and shampoo and Conditioner they have the same type here in all of the stores. Its not hard to find. I have sent letters to you guys. Have you received any of them? Ive sent like 3 but a long time ago. 

Well I love you guys with all of my heart. Happy Valentines day,

Hermana Ross

!!!!!!!!!!!!! NAPYUMI !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello family,

Have i ever used the word ñapyumi with you guys before? Well this is a word that is used in Guarani. It means BAPTISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We saw a huge huge huge miracle this week. As you guys could probably tell my last letter was a little bit down in the dumps. We had been in one whole cambio and not one single baptism I was so frustrated and so was my companion. Well Monday night we went to teach a family that are new converts. They have their niece that lives with them that we had been teaching but she wasn't progressing. She will be moving to Argentina tomorrow and had been living here with her family for the summer. She had all of the lessons and had been to the church tons of times but she was catholic and she didn't want to change. So Monday we decided that we were going to read the most POWERFUL BOOK IN THE WORLD with her. The Book of Mormon. We read the last chapter with the promise from Moroni. We read it and she started to cry. We had no idea why. I felt so strong that I needed to invite her to be baptized. So I did. And she told me she didn't know if she wanted to be baptized because she likes the catholic church. We left her with the invitation and then told her to pray and that we would visit her the next day. When we went to visit her the next day she didn't say anything to us. She almost didn't want to talk to us. Well we got her alone and then we asked her about how she felt when she read and prayed about he Book of Mormon....... after 5 minutes of pure silence...... She straight up told us that she wanted to be baptized and before she leaves for Argentina. She was baptized Friday and confirmed member of the church Sunday. She is 13 years old. It was a HUGE MIRACLE!!! I know that God is real and that I had to learn a lot to really be able to see this miracle for what it was. We are working hard and we are finding more and more miracles. 

 The mosquitoes aren't out a whole lot right now because its so hot but I have used the stuff one time when it rained. It worked fine. 

We have new elders in the ward. Elder Arrington from Farr West Utah and Elder F..... i forgot his name from El Salvador. HA HA we joke because practically these two elders are from my home and the home of my companion. 

Today we had to go to have my companion sign her papers for her visa That's why I'm writing so late. But I want you guys to know that I'm learning a lot, a lot, alot about patience. I know that this work is on Gods time. And thank heavens its like that. I love you guys with all of my heart and you guys are always in my prayers. Before you know it I will be home. Its passing by super fast. I cant even believe I'm almost halfway done. The next cambio will be in march. So i have a little more time here with my companion. And i have no idea what will happen after that. But I love this area, ward and companion. God is a God of miracles. President gave us a new challenge to read the Book of Mormon in three months starting now. Maybe you guys can start with me. It will be cool to think that we are reading the same part of the Book of Mormon. Love you all,

Hermana Ross.

My companion, our newest convert, me and  our convert's cousin who is a member.

Our district after cambios.  2 of the elders have moved on but the rest of us have stayed the put.