April 15, 2013

What did you do with your Monday?

I spent mine at a beach on Martinique.

Well. Part of it. And admittedly, I was unable to go into the water. But still!

And how are all of you doing? I hope you all had a great week. Keep in mind-now is not too late to decide that last week was great.

Coincidentally, my last week was great! We knocked an incredible amount of doors, and we also got to have some pretty cool experiences, especially early in the week.

Tuesday, we started out with a Zone meeting (it's kind of like Zone conference's punk little brother-best part is that Martinique participates by Skype, and as such we are very lucky to really hear half of what goes on) in which we all got our butts thoroughly kicked. But hey, what's gotta happen has got to happen. Afterwards, we set a goal to have one solid contact from the time that we left our apartment to the time that we reached the area we would work in that day, 20 minutes away. Well, God did us one better. We're walking down the street, and a middle-aged man yells out to us "Mormon!". Some of you might be surprised to know that that happens all the stinking time-for some reason, as soon as people see us, they feel obliged to yell whatever words they happen to know in relation to us (Just today, as we were walking down the street-"Ey! Joseph Smith!"). But then he took a deviation from the normal routine by asking us to come talk to him. So we walked over, not really knowing what to expect. He starts by asking us a little bit about ourselves, but then gets into his story. His name is Phillipe, he speaks english because he spent a chunk of his life living in the US. He's not what you would call a "practicing" catholic, but he does say his morning and evening prayers. He has a drinking problem. He has three children in Martinique that he loves very much. He doesn't see them very often, by their choice. He knew the missionaries a little bit in the states. He wants to stop drinking and be better for his children. He wants to change. Now, I will be perfectly honest with you-if we were just going around trying to find someone to teach and we saw this guy, I very likely would not have tried to talk to him. Even now, he's got a lot of changes to make and it's not going to be easy for anyone, but I thought of Samuel's experience, in which he learned that God looks upon the heart. Elder Shepherd and I had the chance to tell him that he has a Heavenly Father that loves him and wants the very best for him. We told him that thanks to his Father, that he could change.

Then there was Wednesday. We started out by knocking an absurd number of doors in an area that I haven't really worked in yet, and then we started the walk to another area to work. Decided to go exploring by a new road we hadn't ever been on before, but which we were relatively sure would eventually get us where we needed to go. Pretty sure that's the definition of a good idea. But. We're walking along, and halfway there, we walk by a young man who was just getting into his car to leave. He saw us and stopped us, asking us who we were and what we were doing. We told him that we were representatives of l'église de Jésus-Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours (Mele, don't translate that-if they can't figure it out, then that's the price you pay for being oblivious), and then he said something, the likes of which I never thought I would ever hear ever. "J'aurais bien aimé appartenir à cette église".(literally, "I would have liked to belong to this church"...but I'm not sure if it's supposed to be in the past conditional tense, or the present conditional...?) ...wow. So, we exchanged information and told him we would come back later. That night, I realized just how unlikely that experience was. First, in location-we just chose to go trailblazing that day, and our meandering course just happened to take us by his house. Then, there's the timing-it takes, in a relative scheme of things, a very small amount of time to get from your house to your car-a very small window in which you are in the street. If he hadn't been getting into his car at the exact moment that he was, we absolutely never would have seen him. This was a place where almost no missionary would have ever gone contacting, so him being found at home was very nearly impossible. But, magically, we happened to be walking by that place at that time, and he chose to open his mouth and talk to us. That, for me, is a miracle. Thank you, Heavenly Father.

But that's about enough for this week. For your general information purposes, today officially starts the last week of this transfer, and it has flown by. I unfortunately don't feel as though I have accomplished as much as I would have liked to, but I'm on God's timeline. Or at least, if I'm not, it's within my control to choose to be so. So yeah, Friday will be transfer calls, and I will officially know where I will be and who I will be with for the next six weeks. Hopefully no one has been putting things in the mail recently.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: So fun fact, I'm reading through D&C right now. I strongly recommend it to all of you as well, but anyway. I'm in section 76 right now, and just read the prolific phrase. "After all the testimonies that have been given of Him, here is the testimony, last of all, that we give of Him: That He lives!" I did that from memory, so it might not be exact. But my point is that, for the many of us who are still in the process of getting our testimony, we may feel that we're not moving fast enough, or we may feel deep misgivings, fears that what we profess to be faith may in fact be nothing more than a fragile belief. Remember that Elder Holland told us that believing is not something to be ashamed of. I add to that statement the additional fact that we have some great testimonies to rely on, while ours are still in the works. Maybe I believe that He lives, but I'm sure that Elder Holland knows. I'm positive that Joseph Smith knew it too. And I know that each of us can know as well, in a process that passes largely through belief. We have many testimonies of Him-most importantly, of the fact that He lives.

THE LITTLE THINGS: I am grateful for the blessing of walking in the rain. I still am surprised evey time I think of how far from home I am (And I'm not as far as I could be-see Pono), but when I am walking in the rain, for just a little while, I'm home.

Oh, and fun fact-my glasses are magical! Every time I wear them, it rains. Another fun fact-I can't see squat through my glasses in the rain.

Aand, the place is closing again. Thank you all for your prayers! Know that I love you!

-Elder Santos

ps. Pictures! Actually, I wanted to send three, but it's not even letting me do two. Ps, I'm a water bender.