March 25, 2013

I have one investigator who has been investigating for 9 years and just can’t seem to join the church. She says she has faith and wants to follow God, but she won’t act (even enough to come to church) until she sees an angel. I keep telling her, if you want to see an angel, you either have to demonstrate faith worthy of seeing an angel or make God mad enough to send an angel down to smite you, and she’s clearly not doing either one. hhaha. In all sincerity, it’s not her time, but she’s married to one of the counselors in the bishopric, so we’re semi-obligated to keep coming back. She jsut needs to read Ether 12. You receive no witness until after the trial of your faith. As brutal as it sounds, she’s currently failing the test-trial of faith, therefore, she won’t receive any witness. (vicious circle, I know). BUT I have faith that some day she’ll come around. I know it because I’ve seen it in her eyes. It’s amazing what you can see when you look hard enough. At times, the very light of Christ which we were born with is visible behind all those layers of doubt and disbelief. Some day. Some day she’ll embrace that light and come unto Christ. And when that day comes, we’ll be waiting. Perhaps not me or my companion, but the beauty of the gospel is that it doesn’t matter who bears it. All that matters is that SOMEONE bears it and SOMEONE receives it. Anyway, I hope you have a beautiful happy week and that you eat lots of vegetables (we may not be able to do proxy work for testimonies, but proxy work for vegetables is almost as good). haha.

I forgot that it’s a little cold there. Here it’s the hottest week of the year! We’re just about dying. Today the expression "sweating meatballs" came to mind. I don’t know if it’s one people actually use, but I think it’s just about right for what goes on with my body every moment of every day (and we all know I’m not a very sweaty person... pobre sitos that sweat a lot hhaha). This week is also the vacation week for all of latin america, meaning that there are soooooo many tourists here. I live on the beach. In a port city. This equals 500,000 drunks on the beach 24-7 for the next week. hahaha. Luckily for us, they tend to stay on the beach, so we just go about our business as usual and just stay inland. Sadly, almost no one is home (because they are also at the beach) and there are almost no buses this week to go to other neighborhoods to find people. Did I ever mention how big my area is? It encompasses the beach, the port, and allllll the area around a VERY large lake (with crocodiles). If we go from one end of our area to the other, it’s more than an hour in bus. And that’s just one direction. Whew.

I’m soooo stoked for General Conference!!!! Especially because there’s the elusive hope that I get to hear it in English. I had never really thought about what a blessing it is to speak the language the prophet speaks until I watched the Teguc temple dedication in Spanish and everything was translated. I had the privilege of hearing and understanding both the English and the Spanish, and even though the translator was very good, there are certain things that are lost in translation. The sad thing is, the people all around me knew it. My companion looked at me with such sadness and said, “you don’t know how lucky you are to hear the words of the prophets and apostles directly from their mouths.” It’s so true. How blessed I am to speak English. Really. How blessed.

I’ll bet they announce at least one new mission president (in my mission!!!!) seeing as he hasn’t been announced yet and he starts his work in June..... hahah. Bueno, I should correct my sentence: I don’t actually know if it’s my mission or not, but for the moment it’s my mission. I’m also betting there’s going to be a MOUNTAIN of temple announcements. Mark my words, Nicaragua is coming. Maybe not this conference, but it’s coming. It’s the only country in Central America without a temple. Also, with all the new missionaries, temple work is going to explode as the church inflates to the fullest. SO AWESOME!!!

I hope you have a groooooovy weeksi-doodle doo. Lovesies!

Funny that you should sometimes call me Herman. In the MTC all the hermanas called each other Herman A. (last name). I always liked that cause it reminded me of Herman Daggett Bayles. Therefore I will gladly take the title Herman. haha. In fact, Hermana Carpenter and I still call each other Herman (Herm for short).  hahahaha

Que Tal. haha. Macheteadas are a form of bubbly baleada tortillas that have slits in them and puff up when you deep fry them. They are delicious, but will definitely make you feel like the stay puffed marshmallow man afterwards. Oh man. I just had a vision of what I’m going to look like to the people of Honduras. Hugely tall, very white, and “puffy” to the max. hahha I am stay-puffed marshmallow Maren. Ugh. hahahaa Here’s the thing about Honduras. You try to eat healthy. You try to exercise. But at the end of the day, you just can’t stay ahead. Here’s why. It’s rude not to eat the things people offer you. So you eat them. No problem. But they give you so much rice when you go to their house for lunch. No big deal, just skip dinner (you’ll still be full anyway). But wait, every single house you go to is going to give you a little something. A package of cookies, crackers, baleadas, licuada, SOMETHING. Multiply that by how ever many visits you have in a  day and you’ve successfully consumed all of New York. Also, consider that even if you tell someone you’ve already had lunch or dinner, they’ll still give you lunch or dinner as  a sign of how much they like you. It hurts to be loved here. haha. Stay-puffed marshmallow Herman it is.

The package arrived. Thanks so much!!!!! I’ve been saving mostly everything for Easter, but the reeses peanut butter eggs fell out of the package and into my stomach. Don’t know how that happened......

I still ahven’t found pretty shoes yet, but my day will come.

I loved the quote from presidnet Hinckley. There’s another one by him that says [if you want to be happy... live the gospel of Jesus Christ.[ I love that becasue so often we say, [I have faith, I’m a good person, why am I not more happy_’ But at the end of the day, we haven’t LIVED the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul’s engaged. Holy Cow. Good for him. ;) Tell him congrats.

I’m not sure about Easter day, but here Easter is a whole week long, full of partying and [worship.[ hahah.

Elise sounds so cute. I met a cute little girl named Brittany )Breeeeeetaneeeeee) haha who always makes me think of Elise. You should definitely send me pics of Elise.

Pizza. Mmmm. We have a pizza hut here in El Centro (the center of Puerto Cortes). It’s funny cause here, pizza hut is a classy sit-down restaurant. It reminds me of applebees in the US, but for the people here, it’s like the top of the Eiffel tower or the palms or something. Good stuff. I hope you have a rockin week! Love a dove a doo!!

 Ok, to be brief:

A short list of things Rocky has destroyed with his face (Rocky being the overly large and excitable puppy-man-dog we have).

 one pair of short, one dress, 4 socks, one bra (my comp’s), 4 dog bowls, 2 buckets, three pails, one pot for plants, one wooden post, one cat, two toads, one screen door, 3 soccer balls that got kicked over the fence, 2 large water jugs.

 Aria, thanks so much for the post card. I got it this tuesday and it was AWESOME. Tahnks so much!"

Yesterday I met one of the counselors to the bishop. He’s completley inactive, so we went to meet him. Imagine a mormon Professor Snape with short hair and a Honduran accent and you’ve got him. He talks exactly like Snape!!!! So awesome.

Birds of paradise grow like weeds here. Makes me think of mumsie. The weird thing is that they’re so good at growing that they have 5 or 6 heads.... Doesn’t make me think of mumsie. She’s only got one head.

Yesterday I saw the tree that Rafiki sits in in the Lion King. It was awesome. It lives near Brother Professor Snape.

Cat on a hot tin roof is so much more than a cliché here.

For Heidi: you’ll be repulsed to know they don’t refrigerate their Mayo here. It’s a miracle I still have intestines. (for you others: every good lab scientist knows that Mayo is the swimming pool that bacteria love to pee in. Ew. Don’t know where that came from, but let me refrase. If you want food poisoning, eat something with Mayo in it that hasn’t been refrigerated for more than one hour.)

Food for thought, bc I have to go and don’t have time to elaborate:

What are you willing to fight like a dragon for? (Mosiah 20:11)

The Father introduces His Son like so: “This is my Beloved Son in Whom I am well pleased.” How would He introduce you?

The future is as bright as your faith.

 

Somebody give my love to Ari! Tell her I hope everything’s great for her.

 

Love you all bundles and bundles and bundles!!! Send me pics ;)

Herman A Bayles.