July 15, 2013

My mission is basically a rerun...

Oh, my family.

Let's begin. Good news first! I got both of the packages (the second one came today)! Which is great, for multiple reasons that you'll see soon. Anyway, thank you to everyone for the goodies and gifts, and especially the pictures and letters. No, I didn't wait for my birthday, but I pretended that I had when I read all the birthday referances. But as for things that actually happened this past week.

So Tuesday, we're doing our studies in the morning, and President Mehr calls.

"Hello, this is Elder Santos."

"Hello Elder, this is President...I'm calling you as zone leader...you'll be going to Martinique to serve with Elder Russell...any questions? Alright, great, could you pass the phone to Elder Santos?"

"Um..."

"Oh no! You're not Elder Sosa! You're going to French Guyana!"

(hah-weird emotional roller-coaster right there. But it's not finished!)

"Elder Santos! I'm calling you as a zone leader in French Guyana."

He then continued by telling me that French Guyana is currently the only country in the mission in which we do NOT have a senior couple. The good news, though, is that there are only four missionaries down there (and yet that's a full zone-welcome to the West Indies Mission). The bad news is that I am the senior couple, so let's hope no one goes to jail or anything. Hah, another part of what President said:

"So yeah, you're basically going to be on your own in the middle of nowhere. So, you can decide to go rogue and do whatever, or you can choose to be exactly obedient." 

"..." 

"Oh, well I guess I'll go for the second one."

So anyway, thanks for all the birthday happiness! If I haven't gotten it yet, then I'm probably not going to for a while, because I'm getting on a plane this wednesday. Which happens to be the 17th.

Wednesday morning I had my very first Mission Leader Council (The SLTs were there-I miss you Pono! Don't break your baby. ps, technically Ke'ala killed the goldfish, not you.), which was fun. The thing about missions that take place in eleven different countries and islands and stuff is that there's a lot of zones, and a lot of zone leaders. I have the honor of being in the smallest zone, and of not having another zone leader in my zone (because let's be honest, in a zone of 4, two ZL's and a DL kinda doesn't make sense).

Then, Thursday, I got a call from Elder Bennion (The Elder of our senior couple on Guadeloupe, and sort of the sub-mission president for french side) "Hello Elder Santos. We were thinking about next transfer and realized that we're not sure if Elder Jomie (A mini-missionary serving in what will be my area) is planning on staying another transfer. So we're thinking about sending his brother down there to replace him"

So first of all, I'm not sure how they didn't figure that out until Thursday night, but I now know that my companion will be the mini-missionary Elder Jomie. Good news is that I already know him, as he is in my current branch. Interesting news is that he's 16 years old.

I think that's about all the crazy news that I've got for the moment. Family, please, please, please prayers. I'll be honest, I'm pretty scared right now for a lot of reasons, and am not sure what to expect for this next week/transfer. Please, please, please, prayers!

Also, Dominique and Davey are both getting baptized this Saturday. I won't be there. Darn. I almost got to break out my baptismal pants!

Yeah, that's it. I love you all very much! I have eaten so much candy this last week. Thanks!

-Elder Santos