March 25, 2013

Out of time...

So on one hand, thank you for everyone who emailed this week! I love hearing from each of you and am very grateful that you thought of me. That said, this email is going to be extrêmement court (yay for random french phrases).

Bonjour à tous,

This week has admittedly been slower than I would have liked. That said, it has been a great testimony-building experience.

One thing that really got punched home for me this week has been the fact that God answers our prayers, and that he is waiting to bless us. Last Friday was a pretty frustrating day. I was on an exchange with Elder Porterfield, and we were going all over the place, trying to, as PMG says, find someone who was willing to recieve us. We ended up actually making contact with six people who we had wanted to have lessons with that day, but each of them was able to talk to us for two minutes, but ultimately unable to see us for a lesson. Basically it was a lot of sweating, but very little measurable progress. That night I prayed out my frustration, telling my Heavenly Father what a rough day it had been, and asking for help. The response to that prayer didn't change the fact that the day had been so frustrating and fruitless, but it did change me. I recieved a peace which allowed me to get over it. To put my load on the Lord so that I could focus on the work for me. Don't get me wrong, it gave me the motivation to do the best to never have a day like that again. But for now, I am very grateful for the little miracle that testified to me that God cares about us on our bad days, too.

LITTLE THINGS: I don't know how many times music has been my little thing, but whatever it is, add one to the count. With Elder Shepherd, we've been doing a lot of singing at the door, in lessons, or wherever. My favorite part is that Elder Shepherd is able to hold the melody line while I sing something else (something that is more rare than you might thing here). That, in and of itself, is a little blessing for me, and for the chance to sing again, I am very grateful.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: For starters, I just want to say that I strongly encourage la lecture of D&C 6 to everyone. It's full of great council and motivation from a pretty good source. But I read and wanted to share this week verse 10. "Behold thou hast a gift, and blessed art thou because of thy gift. Remember it is sacred and cometh from above"

Pretty simple stuff, really. But it touched me in its application in the lives of each of us. As a missionary, this is important because it's really easy for us to ask ourselves why in the world we are here. What God expects of us, what is special about this place that wants Him want us to be here right now, or if we're just being dumped off here as a sort of placeholder. But regardless of your situation, know that you have a gift which comes from God. It is a blessing from above. Do not doubt that which God has given to you-use it to the best of your ability and God will do the rest. Your gift is sacred. You are sacred, and don't you ever forget it.

Sorry, that's really all you get this week. I'll be better next time!

The photo is me, my DMB, and his wife. Pono needs to teach me to be less asian, because my eyes disappeared.

Love you all!

Elder Santos

March 18, 2013

"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

March 11, 2013

I know what the fruit of the tree of life isn't...

Coconuts. But more on that later.

Hello beautiful people.

This week has been all sorts of interesting. Probably the most unusual part was the fact that I took a bunch of pictures. Which I would love to share with you, except I forgot my camera cord (sorry mom!). But hey, you should definitely maybe get some next time. Until then, I'll try describing the pictures I wanted to send, and you can use the powers of your imagination to fill in the blanks.

But as for this week-Monday and Tuesday were filled with good-byes for Elder Larsen. For his last p-day, he wanted to go down to a beach on the south end of the island called Diament, where they have a little memorial of a bunch of statues [picture of a bunch of statues] and a big rock out in the middle of the ocean [picture of me with Elder Larsen both looking dashing, and a big rock behind us in the middle of the ocean]. That night for FHE we went to the house of the relief society president with his family, where I got to drink coconut water for the first time. If you don't mind your water looking like backwash, it's really not too bad! Then, Tuesday, for his last day in the field, we did a split with the trinité elders so that I could go see some people we had planned rendez-vous with, and he could go say good-bye to some other investigators. We ended the night by having a house meeting with the branch president's part-member family. I'll have to tell you about la famille Occolier at some point, because they are crazy. But yeah, Elder Larsen gave away some ties (he had 30 by the time he left) and took some pictures [picture of a bunch of black people and two white missionaries. Quoi de neuf. What else is new?] and then turned in for the last time in Martinique. Wednesday we took him to the Airport at 8am, met his family, checked him in, and then said goodbye [picture of me and two other missionaries huddled around elder Larsen, who is wearing a suit for the second time in his mission]. He should actually be in Guadeloupe right now with his family.

Then we started the part of the week where as a group of three, we got to cover all of Martinique. Oh, and just to make things more fun, the Bennions (our senior missionary couple) came into town for a few days this past week, during which they wanted to check the state of our appartments. So we spent a good chunk of time getting ready for that, because apparently last time was a scarring experience for all parties involved. Oh, and for informational purposes, there is exactly one island in my mission which does not have a senior couple living on it-you guessed it, it's Martinique! So we only have them on site when they fly in, which really isn't that often. In fact, if something goes wrong, our emergency contact in Martinique is the district leader. Which, for the past six weeks, wasn't going to be a whole lot of help for me...But in any case, we continued cleaning and driving and teaching until Friday, when several things happened. First, I got my transfer call, which I will discuss in a second. But after that the Bennions arrived and checked the apartment in Trinité, which passed with flying colors. Then Elder Hansen said good-bye to some more people in the area, because we knew that after that we would be spending a lot of time in FdeF. Saturday, it was my apartment's turn to get inspected, and...it also went off without a hitch! I also learned how to take care of the "petty cash", which is the name of the funds used to pay for apartment maintenance and other odd-job expenses. Then, this morning, I had my first full-ride experience with coconuts.

Why are coconuts not the fruit of the tree of life? Because Lehi never would have gotten to it. For one thing, it's fourty feet in the air, and your sole means of getting it a little closer is by taking a fourty foot pole and whacking them until they fall. Which is not as simple as cartoons would have you believe. Then, once Lehi's gotten one of these elusive fruits, he will realize that it's impossible to get inside one, because he left his machete at the other end of the iron rod. But just for argument's sake, let's say he manages to get inside the thing. He'll find a good amount of the backwash water, but very little actual fruit. What he does find will be defined by its exceeding blandness and rubberyness.

So yeah. We started the day by going to the home of the Laquembé family-they are 73 and 70 years old, and have each been members for at least fourty years. For those of you who aren't fresh on history, that means that they were each baptized years before Spencer W. Kimball's 1978 declaration. But yeah, they've got a whole tropical garden growing in their back yard. One experience from this morning was especially touching-we had been out there with the big Coco tree, and the fourty-foot stick wasn't working too very well. So Soeur Laquembé whips out a machete and starts going at her coconut tree! We told her to stop, that we would get the coconuts down eventually without her having to kill her very old tree. Her response? "It's okay, the missionaries need coconuts!" A couple thoughts on that, which I will mostly save for later. But oh, I wish I had gotten a picture of this seventy-year old woman swinging a machete. I mean, that is just awsome.

But as for my transfer call...I am indeed going to be staying here in Fort-de-France. Back to being on foot and taking busses after this upcoming Wednesday. My next companion will be Elder Shepherd, from somewhere in Washington, though I forget where. He is coming straight from finishing training Elder Russell, who I knew in the MTC. And he will be the new District Leader, which means that I again will be with my emergency contact 24/7. But I got to meet him for a little bit during zone conference, and I'm excited to work with him now.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: This one is a little less scripture-based than usual. But I just want to share with you my testimony of the importance of gratitude. For the record, as a missionary, I have a lot of things to be grateful for, and I probably don't even realize what some of those are, let alone the ones that I know but am not as grateful for as I should be. Yes, there are people that will either mock me or hate me because of the tag that I wear, but on the other hand, there are people here who won't bat an eye at cutting down the coconut tree that they planted however many years ago and have watched grow for so long, just so three goofball kids can have some coconuts. I mean, one of them isn't even going to like coconuts! But he should probably learn to be more grateful in general. I have to say that the members here really are a special group. I think often of the story of Abish, the lamanite woman who held firm to her testimony through years of being in a place where no one lived the gospel. I hope we can all have that sort of faith-the type of faith that can survive and thrive on its own, when everything else around it is trying to tear it down.

THE LITTLE THINGS: This week, I am grateful for french bread. Or, as people here call it, bread. Well, technically they use the french word for bread. Which reminds me...

QUOTE OF THE (sort of) WEEK: "What is pain?" "French bread!" -apparently from "remember the titans", although I didn't know it until Elder Larsen told me about it. Also, if you don't know any french, just take my word for it that that's really funny stuff. (French word for bread= pain, pronounced "pa", a as in apple, but a nasal sound.

And that's all the time I got. One request for the week-if you feel inclined to mail me something, would you include a picture? I realized when I got down here that I don't really have any. I love you all very much! And congratulations to Nicole and Travis on the birth of the newest member of my family, Mason! Uncle Malu loves you!

-Elder Santos

March 4, 2013

Another one bites the dust...

Not literally. Don't worry.

But hey friends! How is everyone doing?

Big news this week, though, is that Elder Larsen is going to be on an airplane to the mission home in 48 hours. So that's kind of odd. He's been going through a sort of emotional journey deciding how he feels about it, but he'll be fine when he gets home. In any case, his family came down to get him. Part of his family, being his mom, dad, and little brother. They got in late friday night, and we've gotten to see them for a little bit Saturday and Sunday. It was really funny when they came to church-they came in after everyone else was seated, and the door is at the front of the room. So basically, let's all stare at the white people! Funny thing is that I totally was doing it too, even though I knew who they were. It's just so bizzare, seeing americans at church who aren't missionaries.

One sort of theme for this week though has been the power of the Priesthood. Elder Larsen's little brother wasn't feeling well on Saturday, and so he asked to have a blessing. So Elder Larsen annointed and Papa Larsen sealed. It was a simple, powerful blessing. It was sort of surprising for me to realize that I'm excited to one day have my own family, and to have the chance to use priesthood authority to bless the lives of my own children. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Sunday, we were over at a members house, and as we were leaving she mentioned that she wanted a blessing of comfort (she left for France last night, and from what I can tell people here are sort of superstitious about planes. And elevators.), which Elder Larsen gave. Then another sister going with her wanted a blessing too, which Elder Hansen gave. Then, as a surprise, a third sister who is not going anywhere in particular wanted a blessing, and asked me to act as voice. So that was scary. I wasn't exactly sure if I had the vocabulary for it, but I was able to do it, and it was a very cool experience for me. At BYU, I only ever got to give one other blessing, as a home teacher. So for my second blessing, first one in French, as a missionary, it was a very special experience.

Oh, but as far as how life is going to be different after Larsen's departure-for one reason or another, Elder Hansen, who got here the same day as Elder Larsen, is leaving one week after him. So for the week between, I will join their team, and we will be an equipe de trois (team of three, or companionship of three) for the week. The nice part is that I get to be in the car with them! It might be a little awkward trying to cover two areas for the week, but hopefully that will keep us busy, if nothing else. Then, the week after, Elder Hansen leaves, and we willl hopefully have two new missionaries here. I don't know yet if I'm staying in Martinique, but I hope so, because it would be sort of hard to have two missionaries new to the area come in at the same time. I should know about that next friday though, so I'll let you know!

Oh, and I've gotten a couple questions about food here. So far I've talked about Macdo and Juice. But the diet here really isn't too foreign or scary. Basically, it's a lot of rice, and a lot of chicken. We also have lots of bananas here, although most of the banana dishes I've had here are apparently Haitian. There is one member here, an older woman named Yva Jean-de-Dieu, who is every missionary's best friend. In fact, she's the first one that was leaving for France. But every Sunday, she invites the missionaries to come over to her house to have lunch with her. She owns a little hotel, and her and the second sister leaving for france, Westland Olycée, are fantastic cooks. I don't know how many years back this tradition goes, but so far as I can tell it's longer than the living memory of any missionary here. When I eat real dishes from here, it's usually chez Yva. (at Yva's house/home). Like I said, lots of rice and chicken, also lots of pepper, curreys, and fruits and veggies. "Salad" here is a little bit different than at home-rather than being lettuce with other vegetables in it, it's kind of like lots of shredded or chopped vegetables mixed together, one of which may or may not be salad. I've had chopped beets, corn, and shredded carrots, and that was a salad. I didn't think I was a beets fan, but they're really not so bad. Look out though-they stain. Other than that, things here are not too different. When we cook at home, we don't do it as Antillans, we do it as americans. We've done burger and fries, and spaghetti. Stuff like that.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: In 3 Nephi 28, we talk a lot about the three Nephites. One of the things that I really like is when Christ says that he is allowing these disciples to have this gift because of what they have desired of Him-to bring souls unto Him. When our purpose is the work and glory of God, what will He not do to help us? And that brings me to my next point...

FOLLOW UP: Well, not technically. But remember, you've only got one week left for my invitation to find a referral for the missionaries? How's that coming? I haven't heard anything about it, which can't be a great sign...but really. It may not be comfortable, but it is the work of salvation. If you inconvenience someone, so what? You are doing the single greatest act of service you possibly could for them! And it doesn't matter if they don't see that yet, because they will eventually, and at that day, you will be more sad to have not spoken than you will be uncomfortable to open your mouth now. Trust in the Lord!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "Automatic cars are for cripples and stupid people. I mean, God gave you two arms and to legs; you should make use of all of them when you drive!"-A member from Guadeloupe, visiting for a training conference.

Mail time goes sooo fast.

My thoughts are with you all, and especially for the safety of Nicole and Mason. I love you very much.

-Elder Santos