Just a few hours ago, I got THE CALL. The office secretary called to ask me which airport I want to fly home to. AAAAH!! What with Hna. Tua´one figuring out all her trunky home plans I feel like the time is ridiculously short. It's kind of scary, but at the same time, three months more is a long time to make a difference in Paraguay, especially if I spend all that time here in Conci.
On Saturday Hna. Tua´one slept all day to get over a bug that she'd been trying to work past all week. With all that "free time" I came to realize that I've really come to the point where I don't really have anything i want to do besides just go out and be a missionary. I caught up in my journal within like that first half hour, then spent the rest of the day studying Doctrine and Covenants with help from the DVDs. I tried doing some creative writing, but it just wasn't fun to me anymore. I tried looking at past pictures or reading past journals, but that wasn't very fun, either. I just wanted to get up and go. Studying and learning was the only satisfying thing to do with my time because it felt so useful and productive.
When I ran out of D&C videos to watch and Hna. Tua´one was still sleeping, I tried again to do some writing, but this time I wrote stories from the mission. THAT was fun, and very useful. It helped me to remember the details of past spiritual experiences and recognize how the Lord has helped me so much this past year and a half. I hope that I'll be able to get some of those stories into the New Era to share with other future missionaries. I love reading the Liahona, and I hope to use my talent to contribute to it someday.
Anyways, the point I was trying to make when I started that first big paragraph was that I feel like I'm finally learning to just let go of my own desires and get immersed in the Work. I loved Pte. Monson's advice to the Young Women to just follow the Spirit one day at a time. We can't let the past weigh us down, and we can't be crippled by fear of failing in the future. We just need to wake up determined to make that day the best day ever.
My studies this week all seemed to have a common theme of just finding joy in the Lord's current assignment for you. I realized this morning that it's kind of crazy that nobody stays in the same calling for very long in the church. Even when we feel like we're in the perfect calling and we're just perfectly equipped for it and we're doing a perfect job...we always have to learn something new and try something else. Sometimes we get upset about that and think that the bishop doesn't understand us very well, but the truth is that the Lord understands us perfectly, and He inspires the bishop. Whatever calling we get is what the Lord needs us to do, and it's what will help US the best, as well. How would we ever learn and grow if we never had to try something we wouldn't ever choose for ourselves? Sometimes we need to be pushed out of our comfort zones a little. :)
There are a few people in the branch who can only think about how wonderfully they did in a past calling, and they're so focused on that that they neglect their current calling. It's pretty sad. Especially since the callings everyone has right now are perfect from where I'm standing. The branch president is by far the greatest strength this branch has compared to other branches I've known here in Paraguay. Every time we give our informe, he actually knows everyone we're talking about personally and he's already visited them, too. He really takes time to go out and get to know the members, and he's very good at seeing what they need in order to be strengthened temporally and spiritually. I really admire him and all the other bishops I've known who make that kind of effort to really take care of their "flock."
The weather's been cooling down a lot, thankfully. No more sweating to death, and the mornings can be pretty nippy. There's been lots of rain, so the kids have been missing lots of school and very few people go to work in a storm, either. It's funny, though, to see those who do make the effort and try to drive their motorcycles while holding umbrellas over their heads. It's never very effective. :)
Sadly there's not a whole lot more to report on for this week. Boring, I know. :) Let's see... I was forced to eat polenta again, which is a really weird corn mash that we´ve nicknamed "wanna-be mashed potatoes." I hadn't eaten it since Mariano. Hna. Tua'one must have brought it with her! It's probably my second least-favorite food, just under mondongo.
We also learned the other day the reason why everyone insists on putting back chairs alone. People always take all this time to drag chairs out to their front yard for us to teach them, and when the lesson is over we always offer to help put them back. They never let us, and when we offered to help this one brother, he taught us that putting somebody´s chairs back means that you didn't enjoy the conversation and you don't want to come back. Yikes! So much for common courtesy. Now we'll probably hesitate to offer in the future. After a whole year and a half, Hna. Tua´one is pretty traumatized by that revelation, wondering how many people she's offended unintentionally. :)
Thank you Grandma, Goompa, Dad, Mom, Ashley, Laurel, Blairs, Amanda, and Bro. Dorny for your letters this week. I love you all so much and hope you're all doing great. Take care!
---Hna. Springer
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