May 28, 2013

I maintain firmly that there is no resemblance there

My dear family,

I want to start by copying the beginning of my journal entry from May 25th:

"Happy 0th anniversary to two of my favorite people in the whole world, Kalei and Elaine Santos. I can't tell you how bad I wish I could be there, but know how much I love you, and how proud I am of you. I wish you only the very best things that you can have, in this life and in the next. I love you."

In line with that thought, I want to give a big thank you to everyone for all the pictures-you're all beautiful. Speaking of pictures, I got a wedding announcement in the mail this week (For some reason the other Martinique missionaries think I look like Kalei), as well as a photo from new cal, so I can officially show people three siblings, two sister-in-laws, and two nieces. Thank you!!

As for my week, it was lots of fun (the wedding a thousand miles away was still the highlight). We've been working hard at implimenting what we talked about at Zone Conference, meaning working more with the members. We got to have a couple rendez-vous this week, in which we got to hear a lot of peoples' conversion stories. What I learned; we heard, in one form or another, the stories of how six members rencontréd the church. Four of them came from a friend who was already a member and who invited them to learn more. One of them is the daughter of one of the first four, whose mom was baptized when she was 5, so we're going to count her as "raised in the church". The sixth is the only one who met the church through independant missionary efforts (although actually, the missionaries didn't contact him-he contacted the missionaries). It was another testimony for me that God does not intend for people to discover the truth by having strangers knock on their door. Yeah, it works in some measure, but it's sort of taking the monkies on typewriters approach-if you do anything enough times, it's bound to work eventually. So this week we've been working on finding a better way.

My adventure for the week happened last night-we had one of those lessons at a member's house, and got done around 8:20. We decided there probably wasn't going to be another bus, so we just started walking home. Unfortunately this was a place I had only ever been to in a car, so I didn't technically know the path home, although I did know the general direction (oh yeah, I was on an exchange with Elder Miyasaki who is still in his first transfer, so I was the one leading the charge). For the first little while we were doing pretty well. We got to a point where I definitely knew where I was, and had to choose between two paths. I chose the one that I thought would definitely be quicker, although I had never been there before. Well...you can kinda guess how that all worked out. With a few stops to ask for directions, we finally got home at 9:45. But hey, if you don't walk enough, how are you going to keep the weight off?

Speaking of which, I had no less than three members yesterday tell me that I've gained weight since I've been here...

THE LITTLE THINGS: One fun fact about Martinique is that there's just trashed cars all over the place. Scrapped, tires gone, winshield shattered, just kinda lying around in random places. Well, this past week somebody raised the bar on random places to put your crap car (see photo). 20 euro to the first person who can tell me how in the heck that got there. Hey, it made me laugh. And for that, I am grateful.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: This is one I got to share for French Mother's day. Want to go on a scavenger hunt?!? I've got a couple scriptures for you.

1 Nephi 11:1, Enos 1:3, Alma 36:17, Alma 56:47-48, Helaman 5:13-14.

Notice anything? Think for a second about these scriptures, and what experiences, what scripture came about par la suite. It's a pretty big chunk of the Book of Mormon, and these aren't all the examples. Turns out that the scriptures that we have to day, we have because parents taught their children the gospel of Jesus Christ. I bet they couldn't always tell that they were having an effect at the time (think Alma), and some of them never even got to see the results in their lifetime (Jacob and Enos, for example) But look at how important it is to teach the gospel in your home! Think of how your life would be different if Lehi or Helaman or the Anti-Nephi-Lehis hadn't done it. I am very grateful for my family, and for the home that I grew up in. Yeah, it had it's ups and downs, but my parents taught me who I am. Even if I wasn't always listening.

I love you all! Next week I'll have my transfer calls, so if you haven't already, you might want to hold your mail items for a little while.

à plus!

-Elder Santos