January 28, 2013

Yay for French Keyboard!

Hey all.

So for starters, I'm typing for the very first time on a french keyboard. So if you see a "q" where there shouldn't be one, try replacing it with an "a". Hopefully I get a hang of this quick.

 

Anyhow, so much stuff. First off, I'm sorry for those of you who I didn't get to speak to last week-travel did NOT go as planned, but I don't think I'll chronicle that right now, because I might not have the time. But hey, there's always mother's day! And we'll get to skype.

 

Anyway, first problems first. Luggage. For those of you who don't know, I packed all my things into two honking huge suitcases. Mistake number 1. Spent 40 bucks to get the second bag from SLC to Trinidad, then 65 to get it from Trinidad to Barbados, then 60 to get it from Barbados to Martinique. Definitely cannot keep that up. So I'm starting out by figuring out what I don't need to have here, and then I'm going to figure out how much it would take to ship it home and get a little carry-on. Fingers crossed.

 

But then I finally made it through customs for the third time in two days, and was greeted by three Elders.

 

MAIN CHARACTERS:

Elder Larsen: A few basic facts-when I was in Trinidad, one of the assistants mentionned that he was probably the best non-native french speaker in the Mission. Not that I would be able to tell, but hey, at least he's still talking when I have no clue what's going on! But yeah. He is from Salt Lake, and has just started his last transfer. He's a good guy, we're working well so far.

Elder Hansen: Also from SLC, also in his last transfer. He's in the only other area on Martinique, with...

Elder Johnston: From Tahiti, 22 years old and has been out for 14 months. He understands english, but we've just been talking in french.

 

But yeah, that's my district, and that's all the missionaries here in Martinique. We're in Fort-de-France and the surrounding areas, and they're...everywhere else. It's not a huge island.

 

As far as life here, I would start out by saying that I'm not in Provo anymore. It's hot all the time, for one thing. And, for those of you familiar with Utah county, you can basically flip that black-to-white ratio on its head. We've been doing a lot of porting, which has been an adventure for me. For the language, I guess I'm relatively fortunate. I mean I can certainly talk and say what I want to (so long as the topic stays church-related, because otherwise my vocabulary is pretty thin), but that doesn't do me too much good if I don't know what the topic is. I'm still working to understand just about everything people say, and definitely not succeeding 100% of the time. But hey, ça ira. As far as the work goes? I don't really know. I'm told it has been a good week, but it's felt slow enough for me. I haven't seen anyone more than once to this point, and we've had some decent lessons, but still. I guess I had an implicit expectation that every day would be a mission story, so right now I'm just working on being grateful for what I have.

 

The branch here is made largely of three groups: old people, who I have trouble understanding, but who tend to be patient with me, recent(ish) converts, who I'm actually working with a bunch in other lessons, and younger returned missionaries, like the branch president. We meet in a room above a car shop, and had 54 people at church this past sunday, which is apparently a little low.

 

So yeah. I'm sweating and knocking on doors and trying my darndest to understand what the heck is going on and taking it one day at a time. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to send pictures from this computer, but I make no promises.

 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: Acts 5:41. Read it, love it, and rejoice at the chance to be worthy.

Sorry I'm sort of skimping on these lately, hopefully they'll get better as things quiet down more.

 

Pictures to come? If not, till next time!

 

-Elder Santos

Almost forgot my address.

 

So for starters, I really can get just about anything here that I could in the States, so there really should be very little need to send things. But for letters, which would of course be greatly appreciated, I ask that you do not send them to the mission home, because that will both cost more and take longer. Rather, they go directly to me at the following.

 

Résidence Aigue Marine

Bat. A3, Apt. 7

Rue de la Dorsale

97200 Fort-de-France

Martinique

 

Pictures aren't working out. Hopefully next time!

 

Love to all of you.

 

-Elder Santos

Pictures

These are a few pictures that have been sent from friends of Elder Santos who are also on missions and met up with him at some point. Except for the last one obviously. Also, the last couple emails from right before he left the MTC were just his travel plans so they were not posted. But he arrived safely though was delayed in Florida for a bit. Also, we don't know why yet, but he is actually in Martinique, not Guadalupe like we thought. But his new address is posted under the Contacting Elder Santos link above.

Ran into Sister Anderson at the temple

Elder Millett and Elder Santos with their travel plans

Elder Santos with his mission president in Trinidad

January 15, 2013

The most useful thing I learned in High school was to sign a yearbook

Bonjour a tous,

 

Alright, so rather than submitting myself to the narrow, linear theory of time, I'm going to sort of be jumping around in this email. Keep up!

 

I'll start with my travel plans. I have travel plans! Cool, huh? Got 'em on Thursday. Well anyway, it's a three part flight. I'll start out by waking up sometime before my 4am report time at the travel office, at which point we will get bussed to SLC. First leg of the journey takes us to Los Angeles, which, for those of you who skipped that day in geography class, is sort of in the wrong direction. But hey, that means that I get to be in the Pacific time zone for a little while before leaving for a couple years! I'll take it. I think that plane lands at 9am? Anyway, I have a layover there for one hour, which would be a good opportunity to talk to some family members, if anyone would be interested to do so. Then, we keep on moving, and I get to fly all the way to Miami. Two hour layover there, but I don't really remember when. And from there, I'm heading straight to Trinidad, where I will get to meet my mission president for the first time! Pretty excited for that.

So I'm going to let you in on a big secret-I don't actually have my travel plans in front of me right now. Sorry. But, the good news is that I will have the chance to send another email (a short one) on Saturday evening, so look for that for more details. I'm going to be in the field in a week! I'm kinda freaking out, but what's new?

Now let's skip back to Wednesday. I got to host again, which was cold, and surprisingly it was a larger group, but I only hosted two this time. Another fun fact-out of the five people who I have hosted so far, five of them have been Sisters. Crazy, right? But anyway, after that I was heading back to my classroom, and decided to drop in and talk to the teacher of our new district in the french zone. We're chatting, and he shows me the pictures of his new missionaries. Well, who should be one of the newest members of our zone but Emily Anhderson! It's fun, because we now have three missionaries in the french zone, all from Sammamish, Wa. We're making you proud!

Friday was something called "In-field orientation", which means that we spend all day doing workshops with some of the special teachers in the MTC. Good stuff. But the really cool part happened on Sunday, when we had our "farewell devotional"-basically, all the missionaries leaving that week-and me-get to go have a special devotional with the MTC presidency. Which would be cool enough as is, but then the meeting starts and President Uchtdorf walks in. For the record, I was like in the fifth row of chairs. I'm going to say that he was probably within 30 feet of me the entire time he was talking. Which, incidentally, wasn't long-he was on his way to a CES fireside broadcast, and just happened to be in the neighborhood when the MTC president invited him to come say "hi". CRAZY, right? That brings me to a running total of three apostles in the same room as me at the MTC.

Sunday evening was pretty sad, because we had a bunch of missionaries from our zone leaving Monday morning-one group at 4, and another at 6. So we had a little goodbye party, we sang, we hugged, and we wrote in each other's address books. Which is incidentally where this week's title comes from. It was pretty emotional, and that night as I was writing in my journal that the nature of a mission is to get to know someone very well, very quickly, and then to leave. I'm not great at goodbye right now, but I'm pretty sure that I'll get a good amount of practice while I'm out here. Something to look forward to...

Then comes the big day, for people not named Elder Santos! Elders Martin, Anderson, and Salmon all got dropped off at the travel office at 1pm, I gave them hugs, and then we went our separate ways. So that was fun. I got reassigned to a new companion for the next week: Elder Clark.

 

MAIN CHARACTERS:

Elder Clark is one of my favorite people I've met at the MTC so far. For informational purposes, he is in the Tahitian district with Elder Millett, and so is still here. But I am actually his fifth (count 'em) companion in the MTC; he started out in a tri-panionship, and then has also been temporary companions with two other elders in the same position as me (the first of whom is also a West Indies french-speaker). I think I decided that the reason that he was put in a tripanionship was so that he would have this opportunity to be companions with so many elders. And Elder Clark is the one to be put in that situation because he is one of the only people who could handle it. He is simply the most personable, genuinly likeable person I have met. He never let's people in small groups walk by us without saying hi to them, giving them a smile and letting them know that he appreciates them. So my goal is to not wear out my welcome!

 

So yeah, that's who I've been iwth so far. Of course, since I'm learning a different language from him, we're not in the same class during classtime-rather, I just wander the halls and look for opportunities to learn and teach. Which leads me to one of my favorite head-expanding moments of the week-you remember frere blosil, one of pono's teachers? He's teaching a new district right now, and I got to hang out with them last night. He was incidentally also being observed by a new teacher, who, when frere blosil and I were chatting, asked if I was a teacher at the MTC. I told him  that I'm still a missionary, and then he asked me if I was from France! Awsome, right? Just what my ego needed. But hey, it was fun!

 

Then, last night, my favorite part was after class, when Elder Millett asked me if I wanted to sing with them-meaning his district. I of course said yes, and we went downstairs to sing to a missionary from Tahiti who they had become friends with, and who was leaving today. We ended up singing for somewhere between 20 minutes and a half hour. Best part was seeing one of the big poly elders in their district (it's the international one, so they're from all over) absolutely sobbing as he was listening to us sing. It was really just one of the most fun moments that I have had at the MTC. Music is powerful guys! I know I'm not going to be teaching the gospel entirely in song, but I'll be danged if I don't do my best at that!

 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT:

My great achievement for this week was that I got to finish the Book of Mormon, cover to cover, in french. I'm low on time, so this will be short, but I would challenge each of you to seek and expect spiritual experiences every single day. We have been told that we require constant nourishment to body and spirit, so that's your new rule of thumb. As frequently as you nourish your body, that's how often you should be seeking to nourish your spirit. Do that, and I PROMISE you that you will be filled. When we teach commandments, we say that God has blessings which he des[arately wants to give us, but that they are the natural consequence of obedience. He cannot break His own law, and he cannot force us to be obedeint, but if we choose to be so, then blessings WILL come. Expect that, and watch for the miracles that come.

 

Out of time, but I'll send a quick email saturday about travel plans!

A plus!

 

Elder Santos

January 8, 2013

Bonjour a tous,

So the next time that you hear from me, I will be including details on my travel information, and on when I hope to be able to call you all on the 21st. Also, the rest of my district will be in France, and with any luck I will have spent last night's class learning Tahitian with Elder Millett and co. Oh, but I should probably talk about this past week too.

So...last Tuesday, we were quickly sliding into pandemic-freak-out mode. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's where I left off. But. Shortly after I sent that email, Elder Martin (mon collegue) got sick. We went to the health clinic, and there were like 15-20 missionaries hanging out outside, while their sick companions sat inside. We started talking, we gave ourselves a cool band name (Companions of the Infirm), and I even got to see an elder I knew from summer tern 2011, which was fun. But yeah, with Elders Martin and Anderson down, we were officially at half-capacity as a district. I spent the rest of the day not touching anything. And magically, I didn't get sick! (Funny story, I'm pretty sure that's because I told Heavenly Father that I'm a lousy worker when I'm feeling sick, and I still had a lot of work to do. Hey, you don't argue with results, right?)
But, the MTC was enforcing a 24-hour quarentine for those who had been symptomatic (yeah, we're pretty serious around here), which meant that Elder Salmon and I were companions for Wednesday. For those of you who don't know, Wednesday is the day of the week when new missionaries come in, and this time, for the first time, our district was asked to help host. Meaning we meet the missionaries at the curb, help them with their luggage, and show them the cafeteria, their residence, and their classroom. It was actually really fun, despite the fact that it was definitely below freezing the entire time I was out there. Over the course of an hour, hour and a half, I ended up hosting three missionaries-all sisters (obviously hosting sisters is a little different, since we aren't going to go into their residence buildings). But yeah, in a group of not quite 400 missionaries, I didn't talk to a single host who had hosted more elders than sisters. And I didn't think it was apporopriate to ask them their age, but you know the 19-year olds are coming. The work is definitely hastening, and it is doing so largely on the shoulders of young women from 19-21. Craazy.

Not much else really exciting for most of the week, although I did get the opportunity to test if Kalei ever reads these things. Hey Kalei, this one's for you.
So on Saturday, my companion was dropping off some dry-cleaning in preparation to leave in a week, when suddenly someone I didn't know shouted "Hey, Elder Santos!". Short story shorter, I got to meet Elder Jason Barrus, who apparently recognized me. Not as me, but because he said that he used to play music with my brother Kalei. So yeah, we had never met, but he still knew who I was before he saw my nametag. I'm having trouble deciding how I feel about that. But anyway, Jason Barrus says "hi". 

Also, I had one more medical adventure this week. Mom-don't freak out. So on Sunday, my bottom-left jaw started to get really stiff, right around the wisdom tooth extraction sight. It just felt a little bit bigger than usual, and it wasn't super comfortable to move. Eating was harder than usual. I massaged my jaw throughout the day, but didn't think much of it. Then, Monday morning, I'm going about my usual routine in the morning, when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. (See image 1 here) For those of you without an intimate knowledge of my jaw line, suffice it to say that I'm not usually quite so...asymmetrical. But yeah, my jaw was pretty wacky, and swollen more than it should have been. I ended up getting a medical appointment after gym, and the doctor said that it's probably just an easy-to-fix infection, but that it could be an only-slightly-less-easy-to-fix absess, and that I should see the MTC doctor that comes in on Thursdays. So...Hopefully I'll know something more in a few days. But it's really a lot better today, so I'm not anticipating it being a problem. 

THE LITTLE THINGS:
So don't laugh. But! My little thing I'm thankful for this week is that...we are officially one week into the new year, and I have yet to write the date wrong. See, normally, I would spend the first month or two of the year writing the year as "2-0-1-2scribbledout-3". But this year? A confident 2013 every time. I mean, am I blessed or WHAT?
...okay, I need help.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT:
This week, let's talk about forgiveness. Why do we forgive? "Because we were commanded to do so." Well it's true, but experience tells us that we are only given commandments which are for our good. So why were we commanded to forgive? Because, as I've discussed before, damnation is defined as a stop in progress. And withholding forgiveness is one of those things that will grind us to a halt if we let it. Our forgiveness may mean nothing to the people it is offered to-they may not even notice its being given (or withheld). But when we forgive someone, we acknowledge two very important things. First, we acknowledge that God's will is more important than ours. Who among us can be anything besides the wicked servant (Matthew 13-ish?), withholding so little when we have been given so much, even our entire lives? Second, we acknowledge the very important fact that we cannot change the past, but we can refuse to let it restrain us. We can acknowledge that our thoughts, today, are more important than the actions of anyone else yesterday. Lot's wife looked back. We look to the future. Forgive, that we may be forgiven, and forget, that we may be free. 

DID I FORGET ANYTHING?
I feel like I did. But I can't remember it. Oh well. I keep on wanting to add a new headline about how funny the scriptures are, but I'm running out of time. And yes, my sense of humor is making the slow descent into "missionary".

I love you, each and every one! I pray for you a lot. Oh, and communication probably won't be so easy when I'm gone, but I really do appreciate everyone's letters and packages that I've gotten here.

A le prochain!

-Elder Kamalu Santos

January 1, 2013

Bonjour ma famille,
So since I didn't really have time to actually talk about life here or anything last week, I'm going to try my hardest to cover two weeks of information in this email. But, I mean, it's two weeks of MTC information, so even then I feel like this will be depressingly uninteresting. Allons-y!

So! Eight days ago, it was Christmas Eve. I hear that for people NOT in the MTC, that means something. Something exciting.
...So I'm joking, but not by much. I mean, we still went to class in the morning, and did gym and a workshop in the afternoon, suspiciously like every other Monday I've had here. But! It was a little bit different, because instead of doing another class in the evening, we got to watch "A Christmas Carol". I actually enjoyed it, but then I am slightly worried that my standard for entertainment has taken a nose-dive of sorts recently. But yeah, that was how I could tell that December 24th was a special day.
Then comes Christmas! In the morning, we had a devotional with Elder Russell M. Nelson, in which the MTC choir sang two songs. Unfortunately, I showed up at call time, and was informed that the choir was full and not accepting any more members. So that was really unfortunate. But hey, I just sat in the regular audience and sang along anyway-Turns out I knew about 80% of the words. That's not bad, right? Then in the evening, my companion had an upset stomach, which confined us to the residence when we were scheduled to go watch "It's A Wonderful Life". I eventually dragged him there about an hour, hour and a half late, and we got to watch the back half of the movie. Which was actually pretty good-I would be interested in watching that when I get back. But yeah, that was Christmas! It's weird to think that I only have one more of those with a tag on.
Then this last week was pretty uneventful, right up until Saturday-Sunday, when for some reason, my nose decided to see how much mucus it could produce. I've got to say, I think we were all impressed by the answer. Yeah, I've had a runny nose/sore throat for the past couple days, but I'm feeling okay. In fact, I'm definitely feeling better than some people!
For about 24 hours now, the MTC has been freaking out. First, at dinner last night the MTC made an announcement over the intercom that we were to not shake hands or hug anyone until further notice. The rumor started that swine flu has arrived in town, and it was supported by the fact that one of the sisters in our zone was violently sick, confined to the health center. Then, last night, Elder Anderson took a quick trip to the E.R. after suffering from a bad case of the puking-your-guts-out. They basically gave him a anti-nausea drug and sent him home. Now, this morning, They keep on making announcements pretty frequently-Don't handshake, don't hug, don't touch your own face, and wash your hands a lot. The most recent think I've heard is that it's likely either food poisoning or the flu. Of the non-porcine variety. Now, you may think that such news would be a source of concern for some people, but I'm pretty sure that my Mom told me that if I take my vitamins every day and drink lots of water, then I'm invincible. At least, I'm pretty certain that's what she said. So yeah, I'm doing well.
Oh, and I almost forgot! So, turns out that yesterday, it was 2012, and today, it is 2013. Now, if I remember correctly, that makes both days kinda special, for some people. Not the MTC!! I don't know if new year's is too close to Christmas or what, but they are doing absolutely nothing to acknowledge the occasion. Fortunately, one of the Elders down the hall in my residence had some party stuff (just the little noisy whistle-things and the poppers), and so we had our own little celebration of new years! At 10pm. Since we can't be up for any new years later than that. But hey, happy new years, South Carolina! Incidentally, this leads into one of my favorite quotes.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Elder Adams, who I think I've mentioned before, is something of a new years grinch. So yesterday, he was making his case, saying that we're not celebrating an actual event, like we do with most of our holidays, but that instead we have just arbitrarily picked a day to celebrate once a year, for the sake of celebrating once a year. You had to know that part of the argument beforehand.
Anyway, last night, we're all sitting there counting down...to 10pm. "10...9...8..." Suddenly, Elder Adams prances through all of us, and shouts at the top of his lungs "I can't wait for things to be different!"

I really appreciated that.

Oh, and I want to talk about music too.
THE LITTLE THINGS: So, earlier when I said that we did nothing for Christmas Eve, I lied. In our morning class, the four of us and Soeur Pace went around to all the rest of the classrooms in our district and sang carols. It was very simple, poorly prepared, and occasionally pitchy, but I loved it. That, for me, was my way of saying "merry Christmas" to the world, and to myself. Also, singing in french is fun!
Then, this past Sunday, I was feeling lousy and decided to skip MTC choir rehearsal, but instead I got some music that Mom has sent me, found Elder Millett and some other willing volunteers, and we just started singing for the sake of singing. It was a lot of fun. Guys, music is awesome! I think that's going to be my "little things" entry for this week, even though it's a really big thing for me. I just wrote the title for this paragraph before writing this sentence. Fun little behind-the-scenes fact for all of you.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: So I think I found one of my new favorite scriptures. In Helaman 6: 37, we are told about how the Lamanites were able to destroy the threat of the Gadianton robbers from their midst. Go read it, because I don't have it on me. But the general idea is that it says that they tracked them, and then ended up destroying them by preaching the word among the more wicked part of them. Let's just take a second to let that sink in. I mean, wow! We're talking about the organization that basically will be responsible for the destruction of the entire Nephite civilization, and they were DESTROYED by the power of the word! Alma 31:5-Alma, knowing that the virtue of the word had a more powerful influence than the sword or any other thing, decides to preach his enemies into submission. And then to cap it off, 2 Nephi 7:8-Let my enemies come near me, and I will smite them with the word of my mouth. I am literally a warrior of God. I will literally destroy the enemies of God. It's just that I will do that with a weapon, an amazing weapon, that allows me to save the children of God at the same time! The Word of God. It is amazing. And, incidentally, not reserved for missionaries. Is that cool or what?!?

Anyway, that's all I have for now. Keep praying for me, because I couldn't get by without you guys. T-minus 20 days!

I love you guys.

-Elder Kamalu Santos