Ok, family. I´m really sorry I didn´t write last week. I´ve
felt bad the whole week, but it was necessary. I´m making up for it by sending
a bunch of fotos because I won´t be able to write much today either. Things are
going ok for me. We´re working really hard and doing divisions at least twice a
week, usually outside of San Pedro. It´s kind of crazy. We´ve also been having
a lot of health problems lately, so my life has been crazy. Katerin is all set
up for baptism and doesn´t seem to mind the fact that we have to neglect her
sometimes to be able to do nursing and sister training leader stuff. It really
is incredible how God blesses us for our sacrifices. We hardly ever have time
in our own area, but somehow we´re still helping people along. Yesterday we had
7 investigators in church, which isn´t anything crazy, but considering that we
were only in our area for the equivalent of a day and a half, it´s pretty dang
incredible. God blesses us a lot. We´re really working with a couple of
families right now. One of them lives in the Bordo, which is basically the
equivalent of the Ghetto. It´s also the poorest part of any area. The houses
are made of cardboard boxes, stray pieces of wood, old advertisements, things
like that. I´d take a picture, but it would be a reallllllllly bad idea to whip
out a camera in the Bordo. hahahaha. Maybe someday I´ll work it out. Yesterday
another person asked me where I was from... he didn´t believe me when I
said I was from the states. He said, ¨well obviously you look like a gringa,
but then you talk and suddenly I doubt myself.¨ I still think I have a definite
Gringo accent, but sometimes people try to flatter me, which is nice of them I
guess. Aside from that, I´m just really coming to understand two great lessons
I´ve been learning my whole mission. 1)He who loses his life will find it: The
moment we completely forgeet ourselves, the moment we go to work and forget
everything but work is the moment we find who we really are and what is our
true purpose. I know that I am nothing but an instrument in the hands of God,
and i couldn´t be happier to say it. 2)Faith is action: I always grew up
thinking that I had to feel something to have faith, that my beliefs had to be
backed by a certeza (surety?) deep inside of me. I still believe that we should
strive to have that deep and burning testimony, but I am coming to realize more
and more that it doesn´t matter so much what we believe, but who we are and
what we do with what we believe. Even more profoundly, it´s who we are and what
we do whith that which we do NOT know. My faith IS my action. They say faith
without works is dead, and I believe that I am coming to truly understand that.
Faith IS works, and therefore without works, we have not faith. If we believe
in something, we must act in it. It´s like the example I always give to my
investigators: I can have faith that the water in my bottle will quench my
thirst, but until I unscrew the cap and take a drink, it won´t change a thing.
I´m learning so much and changing so much, I just wish you could all follow me
like flies on the wall and see everything I see. The mission is my life, and as
George Bailey would tell anyone, it´s a wonderful life.
May you all have a blessed and fulfilling week. I love you
all very much.
Hasta luego,
Hna Bayles
PICS:
Horse-drawn vegetable sales... it´s pretty common in San
Pedro, but no where else in the northern coast
I caught a scorpion
Campana is pretty typical of Honduras
Campana
una plancha
Bautismo de Kristyn
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