Today is my last day as a full-time missionary and its heartbreaking but Im so excited to see my family!! This week was so much fun and I felt every possible emotion under the sun, I also got to experience the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie and LOVED IT! The performers for the night show were phenomenal and we got a backstage tour afterwards. We also went to the temple and all I could feel was overwhelming gratitude that my Heavenly Father loves me enough to send me to the Hawaii Honolulu Mission.
Not many missionaries get the experience of "dying" then continuing to be a missionary for another week. Its been amazing to spend time with Sister Satame, Sister Mchan, and all the senior couples! Im the most spoiled missionary in this mission and I love it 😁 The couples have taken me out to dinner, had me over for lunch, spent time with me in the Mission Office and on and on 💕
Sister Mchan is wonderful and I think Sister Satame gets along with her great. They are going to do great things here in Honolulu, but I am going to miss being here with Sister Satame more than I can describe. She was a handful at times and really pushed my patience but leaving her will be the hardest part of leaving Hawaii. Last night I woke up and realized she had curled up next to me in my bed and was sobbing saying, "Mom where are you going?" That broke my heart.
I was thinking about my mission this week and everything that has changed since I was home last. I remember the first time I watched Lord of the Rings I loved it all, except for the ending. It hurt me to watch Sam, Merri-Weather and Pipin return, after their life-changing journey, to the same old bar in their same old town, and to be so different. I wanted the giggly, irresponsible, loud hobbits back. I wanted them to come home and do what they did before, I didnt want them to be different. But they saw the world differently, and they knew they could never go back to who they were before. I am sure if the hobbits had been members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints they would have realized, through their experiences, the importance of sacrificing for an eternal family and the gift of The Atonement, and to receive those blessings of the gospel they need to let go of who they were, "look not behind thee", and trust that, eventually, their new life would bring them more happiness than who they were before.
It takes a lot of Faith to trust that our Heavenly Father is going to make us happier than we think we can make ourselves. School, career, who you marry, callings in the church, all of it changes so fast from what we try to make for ourselves. Its scary to let go of what you want and trust Heavenly Father is going to give you something better, but what Ive learned from my experiences and others is that he will ALWAYS give us something better. Because he loves us.
Its been a great 18 months. Ill never live the same life I had before, but Im okay with that ending now, because I have a new beginning ahead of me. "It's like in the great stories. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something. That there's still some good in this world and that's worth fightin' for."
Aloha Oe Hawaii, I Tong Ngenuk. 💙
Aloha for the last time,
Sister Kayla Bowen
