"The Lord is my Shepherd"

That subject isn't nearly as spiritual as it sounds. In fact, I guess it's just slightly sacreligious.

But Hey! How's everyone doing?

Me, I'm great. This has been another week of changes, but unlike last time, it's finished by settling back into something like a normal rhythm. Which is great for me, because it was super different during that in-between stage. Anyhow, Monday and Tuesday were "goodbye Elder Hansen" days, and then Wednesday was a transfer day for the whole mission. In the Morning we went to the airport to Elder Hansen off and grab my companion, and then we came back later in the day to get Elder Hansen's replacement.

MAIN CHARACHTERS:

ELDER SHEPHERD: That's where the title comes in. When we first got him, Elder Johnston started singing: "The Lord is my Shepherd, but you are not my Lord!". It was a short song. In any case, Elder Shepherd is similar to my last companion in that he is once again a blonde, blue eyed white american. But hey, he's not from Utah this time! In fact, he's from Auburn. We were sitting down trying to see if there were any long-lost connections, and we discovered that he knows the Hutchings family! Speaking of which, he said that he heard that Mallory was getting married. Can someone check up on that for me? Tell her I said "hi" too. But yeah, we have at least one link in common-His dad's basketball buddy's daughter is my good friend! But I digress...Elder Shepherd is my "mother" in missionary language, and I've learned quickly that different companions change the tone of the mission a bit. I mean we're still doing the same things; knocking doors, teaching lessons, trying our darndest to work with members and walking a whole lot, but the approach feels different. I already feel very lucky to be with Elder Shepherd; he's a great guy, he wants to work hard, and he's motivated by his love for the people.

ELDER PORTERFIELD: He replaced Elder Hansen as Johnston's new companion in Trinité. He's still a youngling in missionary sense; he's starting his fourth transfer right now. He's from California, and will be a great match with Elder Johnston, because they both just have fun wherever they go.

You would think we would be done with the Airport for a while, but the next day we had another Elder come into Martinique on his way to French Guianna; his name is Elder Harrison, he is a few days out of the MTC, and the best part-his teachers were Frere Grossin and Soeur Pace! For those of you who don't remember, those were my teachers. But yeah, I introduced myself and he said "oh, I've heard a lot about you!" to which, my immediate response was "uh oh!" Hah but the best part by far was what followed.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: As he looks around our appartment: "Oh yeah, I've seen your bed before!"

hahaha that was scary. But completely un-sketchy, as it turns out. My MTC teachers know what my blog website is, and apparantly they just showed him some of the pictures from there, including the one of my bed that I sent a while back. Good times.

Elder Harrison left a few hours later, and we really got back into the normal routine. One fun thing with Elder Shepherd is that he really wants to focus on working with and through the members. I didn't feel like we were ignoring that before, but I have figured out that we can definitely do more. When Elder Anderson was here, he said "build the church in a way that it would continue to grow even if missionaries were never to be there again". He also counciled us to, when we didn't know what else to do, talk about Jesus Christ, because, as he put it, other religions don't know him like we do.

But one fun experience for the week: we were porting one day, and happened to come across a man named Jean-Paul. He opens the door, he's not wearing a shirt, and his dreadlocks are reaching all the way to the floor. ...so after we got over the surprise, we started talking about our message, and he says that he knows who we are. He goes into the back room and comes back with a copy of "Le Christ Vivant", says that it's a "beautiful testimony", and he had signed his name at the bottom of the page next to those of the prophets and apostles as a form of agreement. We were impressed by that, kept going for a second, and then he leaves again and comes back with a Book of Mormon. Not the type of one that we hand out though-this one was much, much older. Like, chapter summaries at the back of the book old. Also, he had marked it all up and down. He told us that he had read it four or five times cover-to-cover, and then continued to from memory recount to us some of his favorite parts, in particular that of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis who would rather allow themselves to die than take up their weapons of war against their brethren. Basically, he knows the book pretty well. We got pretty excited at that point, and he invited us in to discuss for a while. We discovered quickly though that it wasn't just the Book of Mormon that he read a lot-he showed us several volumes from Ellen White, some other Christian writers I didn't even recognize; basically, lots of very thick books that had all been read several times. So, yeah. As golden as he sounds, we're really not sure what's going to happen with him. He also is someone who prefers to practice his spirituality on a personal level. When we asked him if he goes to church, his reply was "I am a church". Straightforward enough. I think that's one of the most fun parts of missionary work so far though, is just getting to meet those people who are way out on the edge of the bell curve.

But yeah. The work moves slowly forward. Hopefully in one of the next couple weeks you'll get some more baptism pictures; this time for Jérémie and Lorisa; 24 and 21, have been a couple for 7 years (but don't live together fortunately), and have been to church at least 10 times already. They're really great, and the members here are excited for them to be baptized soon.

That's all I've got for this time. I love you all! Happy belated Pi day!

-Elder Santos