I heard a saying about how time passes in the mission. It went, “the days go by like weeks, and the weeks go by like days.” This little phrase has a lot of significance to me as I hit my 6 months this past week. It’s crazy to think that 6 months ago I first sat down at my desk to start my first online MTC class. Sometimes it feels like that was a year ago, other times it felt like it happened just a couple weeks ago. Time seems to pass faster when you don’t pay attention to how fast time is passing. It really puts into perspective that I only have 2 years to serve the Lord full time, and that I need to make sure I’m putting all of my time to use, because before I know it I’m gonna be on that plane home.
This week we’ve been walking, teaching, and studying a lot. There hasn’t been a day since I first got here where my feet weren’t hurting a ton by the end of the day. It’s good because it means that I’ve worked hard that day and have put forth a lot of effort. It’s also been really hot this week. Still getting used to going from about 30 degrees to an average of 94, but at least I don’t have to worry about the snow anymore. This week we were also to go out with a member in the Branch who is looking to serve a mission later this year! His name is Gustavo, and he had the choice of either representing Paraguay on the national team for track, or serving a mission. He decided to serve a mission and wanted to go out one day to see what it was like. It was awesome because we taught lots of lessons and did lots of work and had a great time. Seeing his sacrifice and enthusiasm is really inspiring.
On Friday I hit my 6 months, and that day was super busy. Right now our mission has a goal to contact at least 10 people on the street a day, and on that day we hit 20. We also taught 5 member lessons that day, and got a bunch of references from members. That night some members also bought us some Pizza Hut, one of the few American restaurants here in Paraguay (the others being Burger King and McDonalds): As some of you know I worked at Pizza Hut back in the states during my Junior year, and it was really interesting to compare Paraguayan Pizza Hut to American Pizza Hut. Elder Harmer and I confirmed that the Pizza Hut here has a lot less grease on the pizza than in the United States.
This week Elder Harmer and I were in charge of moderating one of the Facebook pages this mission has here in Paraguay. We were tasked with posting a picture with a caption that would then be posted on the page with an invitation to comment to get to know more. Elder Harmer and I decided to do one about calming the storms in our lives, and we picked out this scripture to caption the image of a storm:
“He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.” -Psalms 107:29
There are lots of storms in our lives, and sometimes we can feel overwhelmed with what lies before us. But luckily we don’t have to go through it alone. I have seen in the small time that I have been serving how the Atonement of Christ can help change lives and help us feel peace. I know that if we take the time to call a timeout, and reflect on the Atonement of the Savior, we can feel greater peace in our lives each day.
Have a good rest of your week!
Elder Watson
