Holar Familiar! (that there´s Spanish. hahahahahaha. That
wasn´t funny until now when I can actually speak Spanish. hahahaha)
Missionaries are crazy people; they´re happy almost all the
time for absolutely no reason. Cheers.
It was awesome seeing yáll too! But the funny thing about
living in Honduran Parowan (a small town where everybody talks to everyone
about everything haha) is that every single appointment I went to for the next
four days, everyone said, ¨hey, I heard you cried when you saw your family this
Mother´s Day!¨ hahaha Apparently they have nothing better to talk about. Also,
they really like me, so I guess I´m kind of breaking news for them. hahahahaha.
By Wednesday people were saying, ¨Hey, I heard you cried so much when you saw
your family on Sunday that there was a river coming out of the family history
library and they had to use 3 mops to clean it up!¨hahahaha. Oh Honduras. The
funny thing is that even investigators somehow knew. Word spreads fast here.
haha. Anyway, it was GREAT to see you all. :)
Mumsie, I liked that quote a lot. Don´t you worry about my
shoesies. I´ve got another pair in my closet, I just like the ones I´ve got. I
can buy new ones if I need em. I would like an ensign and Lorenzo Snow in English,
but I can get them here, and if not, they´re online so no worries. It´s
crazy how fast everyone is growing up and how everyone´s doing such great
stuff. Augh! So cool. In my mind, I like to imagine that everybody´s just
sitting around doing nothing while I´m gone like they´re stuck in some giant
grape jello, but I know they´re all changing and doing great things with their
lives. That´s kind of the point, though, isn´t it?
Speaking of which, word to all of my friendolas back home. I
was thinking about my Applewood possie today, wondering where they all are in
life. If anybody knows what´s going on with Karen, Liz, Holli, Carin, Kessia,
and errbody else up there, hook a sister up with some knowledge. ;) Is Holli
back from China yet? Have Carin and Kessia moved to Siberia yet? Did Jessie
ever find the girl of his dreams? I just don´t know what goes on in the rest of
the world.
Faja, sounds like the printer is out to get you. Be careful;
I think it knows where you sleep. Ummmm dear Elise, stop growing up faster than
is necesary, I fully expect you to still be a baby when I return. (how the heck
do you spell necesary in English? I´ve tried like 3 times and they all look
weird. There´s two of something somewhere, but heaven knows where). I bet the
graduation will be fun, even if it is in french. haha. I was thinking about it
the other day, and it´s official. Whatever french I learned in before the
mission is DEFINITELY gone. I was trying to remember how to say even one word
in french, and I couldn´t come up with anything. I couldn´t even remember how
to say ¨I.¨ My brain has two languages, maternal and other. If it´s not
English, it´s other. There´s only one slot in the öther¨ section, and right now
it´s full of Spanish. Poor French.
I was riding a bus to Tocoa this week (because apparently it
was necessary to go there for 2 zone meetings this week! ugh haha) when I
realized that all of the emergency signs were in Portugese. It was awesome, and
it made me think of Eileen. :) I´m jealous of your plants, but not of your camera
situation. That´s a bummer, but the good thing is that you can probably pull
the memory out and save the pictures no problem. I loved the puns. Also, I
loved the mother-wife quote. It´s so true and definitely something the people
here need to hear.
Ummmmmm ok. What can I tell you about this week? I didn´t
have changes, so I´m in Olanchito until at least the end of June. We climbed a
¨hill¨named Pacura last Monday and it turned out to be a really big mountain.
It was an adventure to say the least. I felt very Nephite walking through the
jungle, following a man who brought a machete ¨in case of anacondas¨ haha. I
think he was bluffing, and we didn´t get eaten and we didn´t die, so all is
well. I DID have my first tick encounter in my life. Apparently there are a
different variety of ticks (garrapatas) here that only live in the mountain.
Aside from the 30 or so I pulled off my hands and arms as we were walking, I
got about 20 on my legs and stomach. Taht´s WITH long pants. But no worries,
we´re completely fine (all of us except for the ticks, that is. They´re a
little worse for wear). Also, if you ever go ¨walking up a hill¨ (Honduran for
extreme hiking... who knew?) in Honduras, be prepared to sweat more than you
ever have in your life. My clothes were already soaked by the time we got to
the river, so it didn´t really matter that we got wet haha.
Anyway, we´ve seen tons of miracles this week, and I had to
play piano for district conference. Also, when people say a flute will be
accompanying you in church, they actually mean a recorder (like 5th grade music
class style). Also, a woman we were working to reactivate walked 45 minutes
barefoot to get to church this week; lest you think you don´t want to go to
church this week, think again. You have shoes.
I hope you´re all groovy woovy and that you´re happy happy
happy. I´m going to paste my letter to the pres cause it´s a wicked awesome
experience. It´s in Spanish, so you´ll have to guess what it says or use google
translate.
Hey everybody! Mom (i.e., Yvonne) asked if I'd provide a
quick translation of the first paragraph, so here it is:
Hi President!
Everything is great here in Olanchito. We're working hard
and enjoying our time in this marvelous place. We had a rather lovely
experience the other day. One of our investigators was having difficulties but
didn't want to talk about her problems with us (she's a little shy). We
were talking about the Restoration and she wasn't understanding very well. We
were explaining what "prophet" means when Sister White said something
about how prophets can speak directly to God and Jesus Christ, which is a
privilege that we don't all have in this life. Suddenly our investigator's face
changed and she looked surprised. She said "You guys haven't seen Jesus
Christ?" When Sister White said that she hasn't seen the Lord, our
investigator looked more surprised and said in a very reverent voice, "I
have. I have seen Jesus Christ." She told us about a dream she had about
Jesus Christ, that he descended from the heavens and spoke with her and with
other people, that he called her by name and gave her a hug. In the middle of
her story, we realized that she was explaining (with almost the same words as
the scriptures) the moment when Jesus Christ appeared in the Americas in 3
Nephi 11. She has never read even one page of the Book of Mormon, but she was
explaining the story as if she had just read it. We listened, and in the end,
she realized what she had shared with us and she got embarrassed because she
thought that we thought that she was crazy. She asked me, "What do you
think of my story?" and when I explained that I thought that she had had a
miraculous experience, she felt relieved and said that she wanted to be
baptized because she knows that it is necessary and important, but that she
can't be baptized because her husband doesn't want to get married and she knows
that she needs to leave behind the sin of fornication before baptism (we hadn't
talked about baptism or marriage). We read the verses in 3 Nephi 11 that she
had dreamed about and we promised that if she reads the Book of Mormon each day
before her baptism, God will provide a way. We're going to read the Book of
Mormon with her every day.
God performs miracles every day. I am very grateful that I
can hear and see miracles in the lives of others each day.
Greetings to your wife.
With regards,
Sister Bayles
Hna Bayles
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