Elder Santos

Elder Santos

Saturday, May 17, 2014

May 12, 2012



Pictures: We hiked up waterfalls last week. One day this island is going to run out of waterfall hikes and we'll have to find something else to do. But for the moment, here's some pictures!

Also, here's a story from this past week that I didn't think about yesterday.

So on Friday night, we were supposed to pick up five missionaries from the airport. Four of them were american, and came in without a problem. The fifth one is from South Africa, and is not allowed to come into france without a visa. Which, apparently, we didn't know until (you guessed it) Friday night. He ended up getting detained by the police. We spent the next 24 hours trying our darnedest to get him into the country, including fasting and praying, and eventually it was all that we could do to get him going to a place that wasn't outside of our mission. Saturday evening, I was tired and frustrated from a full day of talking with airline agents and police officers. As I was praying to finish my fast, I had an interesting conversation with the Lord, which went mostly along the lines of "I don't get it. Why, after all that we could do, did this not work?"

The moral of the story, for me, comes from something that Truman G Madsen said in a talk that we listened to recently. Sometimes we go to the Lord with the attitude of "Thy will be done-so long as it's my will". We may not yet understand what it means, to be willing to submit to all that the Lord sees fit to inflict upon us. True discipleship has never been practiced or learned when everything goes our way. Even the Pharisees loved their friends. Our test is of a higher order, for we must learn to be faithful when nothing goes right. Maybe that's what Elder Holland was talking about, when he spoke of the "other part of discipleship". 

Anyway, I love you all! It was great getting to see you.

-Elder Santos



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