Zero Percent

Dear Everyone,

Welp. I've been sitting here for 1-hour thinking of what to say and I have no words. Literally. I think I am having a halfway mission crisis.

It feels like I have been here my whole life but at the same time, I remember hugging my family goodbye like yesterday. Hopefully what I'm about to say makes sense...I have been thinking a lot about it. 

The difference between real life and mission life is that we do not remember saying goodbye to our heavenly family when we were called to earth. The first things we remember are experiences from our childhood and the events that have led us to be who we are today. 

Life is like the mission: sometimes it feels like it is all we have done! We forget that we lived with our heavenly family before coming to the earth and we will keep living after our physical death. 

If I were to live to be 85 years old, the mission would be about 2% of my life on earth. That's nothing! SO short!!!! Yet life is even shorter than that:

Life on earth makes up 0% of our lives in the span of eternity. ZERO percent. It is impossible to get bigger than that because we will live forever! For that reason, we need to be wise. We need to be kind, and we need to be obedient. God has only given us 0% of our lives to do it. And what we decide to do in this sliver of time is what will determine our eternal salvation.

The mission is short, but life is shorter. Do your very best to endure to the END! It IS worth it. Don't listen to the lies that tell you it's not.

I was reading in the Book of Mormon where Alma teaches his sons the gospel. Even after he already converted thousands to the gospel and showed his sons how to do it too, he "could not rest, and he also went forth [to declare the word]" unto the Lamanites. And this because he knew why he was here on earth--to prepare to live with God again.

I promise that on the last 50% of my mission, I will not rest! I'm so happy and feel blessed to help in this marvelous work. A returned missionary told me, "Congratulations! You are about to begin the best part of your mission." I know that's true. :)

I love you all.

Hermana Hayes