Hello outside world

You know, it's always sort of amusing how people seem to think missionaries live in a bubble of happiness and joy, trying to indoctrinate everyone with their messages so we can all live happy lives like swaying flowers in beautiful fields of gold.

The mission isn't like that.

Honestly, I'm convinced that as missionaries we get a view of how the world is more clearly than perhaps anyone else. We live to serve and lift and help others, and with that we enter into all walks of life, hear all sorts of terrible things, see all sorts of terrible things, and suddenly the rose colored glasses that our parents raised us with are ripped from our faces and we see the world for what it really is. 

The good news, though, is that the church is true. There's a cure for all this, and there's actually a purpose to all the suffering too. God has a plan, and while that plan may be impossible to understand at times, the good news is that this life was never suppose to be guided by pure knowledge in the first place. We're here so we can learn faith and humility.

Well, some of you might already know this, but I'm at the half way point in my mission. On 5 of November, I will have completed 9 months, and I will have 9 months more to go. The time has gone by ridiculously fast, and truthfully much of it is meloncholy and bittersweet, but I'm also content that I used these 9 months wisely, and that I'll use the rest of the 9 months I still have to continue serving the Lord. 

I've learned a lot of things while I've been here, but honestly I'm not sure how much good it would do to make a laundry list of them all here. The things I have really learned are things that have been integrated into my being. I'm not sure how to explain them in coherent thoughts or sentences, but I do know that I've changed. 

I guess the number one thing I've learned is love. Everything else really in secondary to that first eternally principle. Really, nothing works without love. It is the motor behind this work, the motor behind everything that God does. It is what keeps us, as missionaries going through the hardest days of our missions. It is also what keeps this world going despite all the terrible things that happen. It is the strongest source of energy we have, and everything we do should stem from the love we have for God, and for our fellow man. The purpose of our life is to learn that really, it's not our life. 

Well, I love you all. I am grateful for your support, your prayers, your words of encoragement, everything. I'm grateful for my parents, who really did raise me right. I'm ridiculously proud of them. :D And I'm greatful for God, who gave me this life as an opportunity to learn how to serve him. 

Cuidense mucho,

Hermana Day