May the Fourth be With You 2014

As always, I´ve delayed the day of my writing until it is almost too late, so this will be short. I´m so sorry about that, but the good thing is that we can catch up when we talk this Sunday. Speaking of which, I think I´ll be calling between 1 and 3 in the afternoon Honduras time. Probably around 2, but we still have to figure out how we´re going to do it. haha We´re kind of hoping the bishop will lend us his house again, but he hasn´t offered yet. We´ll see what happens.


I was going to write more, but the lady just came and had to use my computer so she took away about 25 minutes of my time. Oh well. I guess I´ll talk to you all sunday.

Love you all,
Hna Bayles

P.s. Eileen: I saw the Romero family again (twice this week actually) and they say hello. They´re going to be traveling again this year and say it would be great to get together again sometime.
p.p.s. I´m training a new missionary who I am also training to be the nurse. Her name is sister Robles. She´s from Peru.

 

May 19, 2014

Oh man. I wish I could tell you all half of what I have to tell you all. Time. goes. way. too. fast. I tried to get an extension again, but I`ve been shut down for about the millionth time... I guess that means they`ve received revelation or something that I`ve gotta be in the States for the 4th of July. Apparently the Bayles celebration is internationally recognized as being unmissable. I will be home in a month. I look at that sentece written on the screen and I don`t believe it. What`s more, I don`t want to believe it. The mission is the biggest blessing and the greatest joy of my whole life. I think it will be a big challenge and trial for me to have to leave it behind. 

We always match accidentally. Especially Hna Marley and I. She hated it when we were comps. hahahahaha

 

Hna Marley (my excomp) Hna Zelada Me Hna Robles (current comp)

Let me tell you a little about the most blessed person in the world:

She wakes up every morning at the buzzing of what is possibly the most annoying alarm clock in the world. Really she`s already been up since 5:30 because her downstairs neighbors have to get kids to school and husbands to work and doggies to the tree. She understands. She blinks for half a second then sits up and starts and starts a non-stop stream of babbling to her still-not-entirely-conscious companion, but her companion is a good sport about it and sits there mostly listening to her with bleary eyes and giving grunted responses. They hit their knees then start a very sleepy workout session. They shower, get dressed, then eat a fruity breakfast while they study. They answer the phone a lot because people are always sick and nobody respects study time. They keep studying and studying. They practice and re-practice. They pray then pray again (and again and again and again......). They brush their teeth, drink water, put on their dusty shoes and walk out the door, thanking God for one more day to wear a plastic name badge. They walk. They talk. They teach. They serve. (They answer a lot of phone calls). They get yelled at. They get jeered at. They get whistled at. They get cat called. They get doors slammed in their faces. They get dogs set on them. The come very close to getting hit by cars about 14 times a day. They sweat until they have to wipe their faces with a rag, then 5 minutes later, they have to wipe themselves again. The sun goes down and they keep on going. They finish the day and enter the house completely filthy, smelly, and slightly wilted. They pray they plan they pray. They clean their dusty muddy feet. They answer a lot of phone calls. They study and chat and maybe eat food. They hit their knees. They sleep.

I dare you to find a more blessed person in the whole world.
I.
dare.
you.
I dare you to find a happier person in the whole world.

I.

dare.
you.

I thank the Lord every day for one more day to be a missionary.

Take care of yourselves and know that I love yàll.

Lots and lots of Love

Hna Bayles, the most blessed person in the whole wide world.  

 

 

Sometimes you just have to yell at a monkey. But look... he loves me.

 

This is Pancho. This is a picture of him caught in the act of licking my arm.

How embarrassing. for him. haha

May 12, 2014

 

I don't have time to write but y'all didn't write me either so i don't feel so bad. In other news: today i ate fish eyeballs. They were squashy. Pics to come.

love yall!

Hna bayles
 

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