Please remember reader, this is unedited:
This week started out very hard for me...i had this nagging feeling of "its the same thing every day" and "i have been in the mission for 5 months and i am getting bored, how will i make it another year and a half??" and it rained on tuesday. i recently purchased a gospel art picture book to use during lessons to help keep little kids interested and to help explain things to investigators. the pictures are absolutely gorgeous, and i took a prevenative step and put it inside of a plastic bag inside of my backpack so that if it rained it wouldnt get wet. so when it did rain i didnt worry about it. but then when i got home, i found that the only open part of the bag was exposed to a small puddle of water in the bottom of my backpack and the top part of the book got pretty wet :/ it was kind of like the straw that broke the camels back. it pushed me to the point where i actually got sort of mad. its the first time in 5 months that i have felt mad, and it caught me off guard. that night (we are in tuesday right now) i went and we made pizza for the familia martinez(nancy and her siblings) and that was pretty fun. it helped lift my spirits a bit to be in a situation where we were serving and enjoying the company of such good people. but when i got home the feeling was stilll there.
wednesday morning the strange feeling continued....i talked to elder souza about it (he is by far the best comp i have had in the mission so far, he is just a fun upbeat guy, and i love how he works. this has been my most enjoyable 6 weeks to be sure) and he asked me exactly what my purpose was. why am i serving a mission. what is my focuse? he then asked me what i was thinking the other day when we went and made pizza with nancy and her siblings. and i told him that i had been thinking how it was fun, but that it would be even more fun when i could do it in college and be free to interact like a normal person. he then told me somethign that really called my attention. he said that he had been thinking about christ and how he would have used that situation to teach. he had been focused on the way we could spiritually enrich the people there, and i was focused on me, my future, and how things werent exactly how i wanted it right then. that is when my good old TNT training kicked in.
i wasnt "being 100% present!!"
happiness really does live in the present....and i relearned that on wednesday. if i keep focusing on how life will be different after the mission, i will be wasting those precious moments that i have here right now. i am living in a third world country right now. i am sorrounded by people that probably have never even seen a house with carpet in their entire lives. who live thinking that owning a car is an attribute of a chuchi person, and here i am focused on me. i will never have this opurtunity again in my life, to completely focus on serving others and be a servant of the Lord 100%.....thats when i realized a few things. i have been in the mission for 5 months, my spanish is working miracles and i can almost completely express my self now. i am in alma 48 or so and i started when i left home. and time has flown by. i need to take advantage of every moment that i have a live life to its fullest. so i ended the day with a smile on my face, and i felt a lot better :)
thursday i had divisions with my district leader. it was an ok day. i was paired up with his comp who is a 5 foot nothing guy from guatemala and has only 2 1/2 months or so in the mission, so it felt weird being completely in charge for 24 hours. but it was a good experiance. we did service cutting weeds with machetes, and it showed me that if it was necessary in this next change, i could be the senior companion :)
friday was an interesting day. i started out normal, just studies and such waiting for Elder Souza to get back so i could have my normal comp back :) he was super tired though, so after doing only one visit we went back home. we had gotten a late start to the day becuase of the diviosion. so when we got back it was like 6:30 which is super early....i felt really weird being at home that early. but Elder Souza was just dead tired. so we planned the next day and just went about normal buisness. then out of nowhere he called one of our recent contacts and asked if how things were going and if there was anything would could to do to help him. Edger responded and said that there actually was tsomethign that we could do. he wanted to do somethign special for his girlfriend for valentines day, so he asked elder souza if he could draw a picture of the two of them in pencil. so we spent almost the entire rest of the evening chatting while elder souza drew. he even bought dinner for us! so instead of just wasting time, we spent the time creating a really good frienship with this awesome guy :) he pointed out his house on the map we have, gave us his email, and even sent us friend requests on FB for when we get back home! haha it was awesome :)
valentines day was way different from last year haha ;) the weather was nice a cool for a change, it was cloudy almost all day and was constantly threatening to rain :) as for highlights.....well the coolest thing that happened all day was when we went to visit hermana alvarez. we were chatting for a while, then elder souza asked if she had any questions for us of any kind. she said "actually i do, where can you find" and i instantly thought in my head "10 commandments, mosiah 13" and afterwards she said "donde esta los 10 mandamientos?" and i just kinda was taken by surprise and said "en mosìa 13, en este parte esta hablando abinadi a los sarcedotes de noè"
i fetchin knew her question and answer before she asked!!! that was way cool :D
sunday was a little bit disheartening. we dropped from the 13 we had last week all the way back down to 7 :/ but hermano valerio gave his very first talk, and it went super well! it was on faith. he is a member of only 8 months or so, and it was so cool to see him bear his testimony and use his scriptural knoweldge to share with other :)
overall this week started low, and ended high :) i have been able to refocus on my mission, i am workign hard. and i am happy :) i feel the spirit in ways i didnt know where even possible before, and i can really feel the true joy that comes from serving others :) i love this church and i love the gospel. I love my older brother Jesus Christ and i love being able to share the messege of redeeming love that is his grace and atonement for all mankind:) i love paraguay and all the challenges that living here provides. life is good, and this was a good week :)
with love,
Elder DuFort
This week started out very hard for me...i had this nagging feeling of "its the same thing every day" and "i have been in the mission for 5 months and i am getting bored, how will i make it another year and a half??" and it rained on tuesday. i recently purchased a gospel art picture book to use during lessons to help keep little kids interested and to help explain things to investigators. the pictures are absolutely gorgeous, and i took a prevenative step and put it inside of a plastic bag inside of my backpack so that if it rained it wouldnt get wet. so when it did rain i didnt worry about it. but then when i got home, i found that the only open part of the bag was exposed to a small puddle of water in the bottom of my backpack and the top part of the book got pretty wet :/ it was kind of like the straw that broke the camels back. it pushed me to the point where i actually got sort of mad. its the first time in 5 months that i have felt mad, and it caught me off guard. that night (we are in tuesday right now) i went and we made pizza for the familia martinez(nancy and her siblings) and that was pretty fun. it helped lift my spirits a bit to be in a situation where we were serving and enjoying the company of such good people. but when i got home the feeling was stilll there.
wednesday morning the strange feeling continued....i talked to elder souza about it (he is by far the best comp i have had in the mission so far, he is just a fun upbeat guy, and i love how he works. this has been my most enjoyable 6 weeks to be sure) and he asked me exactly what my purpose was. why am i serving a mission. what is my focuse? he then asked me what i was thinking the other day when we went and made pizza with nancy and her siblings. and i told him that i had been thinking how it was fun, but that it would be even more fun when i could do it in college and be free to interact like a normal person. he then told me somethign that really called my attention. he said that he had been thinking about christ and how he would have used that situation to teach. he had been focused on the way we could spiritually enrich the people there, and i was focused on me, my future, and how things werent exactly how i wanted it right then. that is when my good old TNT training kicked in.
i wasnt "being 100% present!!"
happiness really does live in the present....and i relearned that on wednesday. if i keep focusing on how life will be different after the mission, i will be wasting those precious moments that i have here right now. i am living in a third world country right now. i am sorrounded by people that probably have never even seen a house with carpet in their entire lives. who live thinking that owning a car is an attribute of a chuchi person, and here i am focused on me. i will never have this opurtunity again in my life, to completely focus on serving others and be a servant of the Lord 100%.....thats when i realized a few things. i have been in the mission for 5 months, my spanish is working miracles and i can almost completely express my self now. i am in alma 48 or so and i started when i left home. and time has flown by. i need to take advantage of every moment that i have a live life to its fullest. so i ended the day with a smile on my face, and i felt a lot better :)
thursday i had divisions with my district leader. it was an ok day. i was paired up with his comp who is a 5 foot nothing guy from guatemala and has only 2 1/2 months or so in the mission, so it felt weird being completely in charge for 24 hours. but it was a good experiance. we did service cutting weeds with machetes, and it showed me that if it was necessary in this next change, i could be the senior companion :)
friday was an interesting day. i started out normal, just studies and such waiting for Elder Souza to get back so i could have my normal comp back :) he was super tired though, so after doing only one visit we went back home. we had gotten a late start to the day becuase of the diviosion. so when we got back it was like 6:30 which is super early....i felt really weird being at home that early. but Elder Souza was just dead tired. so we planned the next day and just went about normal buisness. then out of nowhere he called one of our recent contacts and asked if how things were going and if there was anything would could to do to help him. Edger responded and said that there actually was tsomethign that we could do. he wanted to do somethign special for his girlfriend for valentines day, so he asked elder souza if he could draw a picture of the two of them in pencil. so we spent almost the entire rest of the evening chatting while elder souza drew. he even bought dinner for us! so instead of just wasting time, we spent the time creating a really good frienship with this awesome guy :) he pointed out his house on the map we have, gave us his email, and even sent us friend requests on FB for when we get back home! haha it was awesome :)
valentines day was way different from last year haha ;) the weather was nice a cool for a change, it was cloudy almost all day and was constantly threatening to rain :) as for highlights.....well the coolest thing that happened all day was when we went to visit hermana alvarez. we were chatting for a while, then elder souza asked if she had any questions for us of any kind. she said "actually i do, where can you find" and i instantly thought in my head "10 commandments, mosiah 13" and afterwards she said "donde esta los 10 mandamientos?" and i just kinda was taken by surprise and said "en mosìa 13, en este parte esta hablando abinadi a los sarcedotes de noè"
i fetchin knew her question and answer before she asked!!! that was way cool :D
sunday was a little bit disheartening. we dropped from the 13 we had last week all the way back down to 7 :/ but hermano valerio gave his very first talk, and it went super well! it was on faith. he is a member of only 8 months or so, and it was so cool to see him bear his testimony and use his scriptural knoweldge to share with other :)
overall this week started low, and ended high :) i have been able to refocus on my mission, i am workign hard. and i am happy :) i feel the spirit in ways i didnt know where even possible before, and i can really feel the true joy that comes from serving others :) i love this church and i love the gospel. I love my older brother Jesus Christ and i love being able to share the messege of redeeming love that is his grace and atonement for all mankind:) i love paraguay and all the challenges that living here provides. life is good, and this was a good week :)
with love,
Elder DuFort