November 18, 2013

Well, I was running out of excuses anyway...

Which works well, because I don't really have a good one for this past week. Basically, the 11th was Armistice day, and when we eventually got some email time on Thursday, I didn't have enough time to send out my group email. But, thank you for news and love anyway!

So I'll try to cover the last two weeks if it's possible.

News items first-transfer calls were this last week, and nothing is changing. All four missionaries down here are going to be exactly the same. But, fun fact-that means that next transfer is going to set two records for me; both longest stretch of time in one area, and longest stretch of time with the same companion. Also, I will have been here as long as I have been in all other places combined. Which, hey, is nothing compared to Pono's 7 transfers in Paita. Félicitations! C'est bien que tu aimes Dumbea, parce que je parie qu'il pourrait être ton dernier secteur. Amuse-toi bien! Congratulations! It's good that you love Dumbea, because I bet it could be your last sector. Have fun!

Since last time, I got to do a couple of exchanges too-in fact, in our itty-bitty-little micro zone down here, exchanges mean that every missionary works with every other missionary down here every transfer. So last week, I got to work with Elder Call, and really appreciated it. For as young as he is, he's already speaking great french and participates really well in lessons. And, he happens to be a very gifted chef. This week's exchange with Elder Miyasaki was lots of fun too; he is just always having fun and enjoying life. Also a great cook. And yes, we've already all had fun laughing about how the two people who know how to cook are together and the two people who don't know how to cook are together.

Whiich leads nicely into our next fun item-a while ago an investigator taught us how to make a traditional haitian dish named banane pesée (sp?) translates to banana weighing, and then this past week we did a service project for a member, and at the end they gave us a bunch of green bananas-exactly what the dish is made with! So, we went out on a limb and made it ourselves. And it sort of worked! I'll make it for you when I get home.

Couple cool stories from the past couple weeks too. We went to see one of our recent converts this past week, he opened the door, I asked him how he was doing, and he said "good, but I'm not going back to church anymore". Heart. Stops. But he still invites us in, we talk for a while (there was a little misunderstanding at church-he's a native english speaker, and in french, he understood something that offended him), and before leaving he accepted our invitation to come back to church the next week. He was one of the first members there on Sunday, and even came to our fireside on Saturday night. But I just remember that right after he said that at the door, the entire time we were there I was just praying so hard. 

But probably one of my favorite experiences happened on that first exchange with Elder Call-in the morning, we had a Mission Leadership Council, and one of the things that President talked about was how we react when rendezvous fall through. He said to stop being frustrated and to look around quick, because an omnipotent, omnicient God doesn't bring us places for no reason. Even if the person that you had in mind isn't there, God's probably got something better in store. Well, that afternoon, we went to an appointment, and who would have guessed it-they weren't there. So we turned around and decided to start talking to the neighbors. Well, we had really only gone down the road a little ways, before we call inside of a house, and a woman comes out and says "How did you two get here?" I was a little confused, so I said "Well, there was a plane, then a car, then we walked a little while..." But she kept on going, and said "No, this address! How did you find this address?" We shortly discovered that this woman was a member of the church, less-active for a couple years. She told us that for a couple weeks, she had been having dreams about people dressed like us, coming to her door. "I couldn't decide if it was the PAF or missionaries, but here you are!" She was very emotional as she explained to us how much she loves the church, and how much she wanted to come back. We testified that her loving Heavenly Father had not forgotten her, and, even if we didn't know it at the time, He had brought us here just for her. She came to church yesterday, and said that she's planning on bringing her husband and son next week.

Well, that's pretty much my time, but for a few last comments:

-Yes, last Thursday was the hump. It's really crazy to think that it's been a year since I last saw any of you, a year that I've been wearing a tag. It's scary to think that people say that the second half goes quicker, because...

-A couple people have asked things about Christmas. Well, I really have been slowly losing confidence in the mail system down here, so I am going to kindly ask that no one send me anything. I love you and appreciate all that you do, but it's disappointing for everyone when things don't show up.

Yep.

Love,

-Elder Santos