April 28, 2014

I was all excited to read and respond to your emails when suddenly I realized I have nothing to say. It´s been such a crazy week. We did three divisions and the only days we actually got to work in our own area were completely eaten up by health emergencies and other general health problems and also a ward mission activity that completely flopped. Hahah. We also had our biggest lesson of the week fall through then we were macheted by a sister in our ward. (macheted means to get, like cut down or yelled at or rebuked). Haha. All in all it´s been a weird but good week. I´m exhausted, but I´m doing well. We have changes this Wednesday and I must admit, I´m pretty sure I´ll have changes. I was really hoping to finish my mission in this area where I am now, but with everything that has to happen before the end of the mission, I think I´ll end up leaving. I think I also won´t be able to be sister training leader any more because of another responsibility that I think I´ll have to take on. It makes me a little bit sad, but I´ll go where He wants me to go, do what He wants me to do, and say what He wants me to say. If there´s one thing that´s really gotten engrained in my head in this mission, it´s that it´s not about me. My mission would have turned out so very differently if it had turned out ¨how I wanted it,¨ but God knows oh-so-much better than I do, and I think it will end up being exactly the mission I want it to be. It´s just interesting seeing how many times I can say, ¨I hope that never happens to me,¨ or, ¨I never want to do that,¨ and that is EXACTLY what ends up happening in my mission. Hahaa. God has a funny sense of humor.

 

I thought I would baptize half of Honduras, and yes I´ve baptized a few people, but not half of Honduras. Haha. I thought I would travel all over Honduras and have a whole bunch of different areas. I have now lived in San Pedro Sula 11 months, and it´s possible that I´ll finish off the mission with a nice round year. I thought I would be a full-time preaching missionary, which I am, but I never imagined that I would end up being nurse and training leader (which is to say, being not exactly a full-time proselyting missionary hahaha). I thought things would turn out so differently, but they´ve ended up being something so completely incomparable to any other human being´s mission that I just can´t even quite wrap my mind around it. And the amazing thing is that it has been the best mission that could have ever existed for me. No one has ever been so changed by their mission as I have, and no one in all of existence has ever loved their mission as much as I have. This is not just what I do. This is who I am. I do not just do missionary work; I AM a missionary, an authorized representative of Jesus Christ, an authorized authority for the church. I just don´t remember how to be anything else, and the truth is, I don´t WANT to be anything else. I just can´t even comprehend how it would be to be ¨baggy¨ (I believe in Gringolandia they call it being trunky). I just can´t even imagine wanting to leave this all behind, wanting to go back to the world as I once knew it. This is my life, and it has become such a part of who I am that the very idea that someday it has to end makes me want to stop time in it´s path and live in this moment forever. I´ve never quite done something so difficult as serve a mission, and I´ve never been quite so happy as I am.

 

When I was in the MTC Jeffrey R. Holland came to visit, and in his remarks, he told us that we had to learn to leave home behind and lose ourselves in the work. He told us to tell ourselves that we were never going home, that this IS real life, not some temporary replacement to occupy us while our real life waits back home. I remember enjoying the talk, but I remember when he said (with all the fire of Jeffrey R. Holland), ¨You are NEVER going home(!!!),¨ I just thought to myself, ¨That´s what HE thinks.¨ Now I think back on those words as they ring through my head and I think he really knew what he was talking about. I am never going home. The person I was before the mission ceased to exist when I entered the MTC. I am no longer her. And now, the person I have become will stay here forever. She will never leave. And even though I have to go home (they keep telling me they won´t give me an extension), the person who steps on that plane in Honduras will not be the same person who steps onto US soil after a 16-month leave. It´s just not possible. She´s never going home. She may look the same, she may talk the same, she may walk the same, she may have the same memories, but she will have left herself behind. Her heart will always be in Honduras.

 

I hope you all know how very much I love you. And knowing that, I hope you all know how very very much I love my Heavenly Father. I do this for Him, I am this for Him, and if it weren´t for Him, I would not be the person I am. Take care of yourselves in this week, and wish me luck this change. It´s gonna be a big one.

Lots of Lovesies,

Hermana Bayles