September 22, 2014

So it's definitely December 4th.

although there was a funny moment in my interview with President, when he asked me "When are you going home?" In my mind I was like "What're you doing asking me that?!"

But then I got an email from our travel secretary, and she confirmed that "you will be returning home on Demeber 4th". So, there you have it.

So, it's official. Last zone conference is behind me, I've said goodbye to a bunch of people, and the next time that I'm going to see President Mehr is for my final interview. That's pretty weird. But I've got some stuff to accomplish before then, so that'll keep me busy.

The musical number. Since I've talked about it so much, I feel like it's only fair that I mention how it went. Family, you know that song. Many of us sang it with the Milletts for our double farewell. It's not an easy one. I had Elder Fraley record it on my camera while we were singing, so you'll get to listen to it yourselves one day. When I listen to it, I notice the skewed timings, the lost parts, and some conspicuously missing high notes (A soprano! A soprano! My kingdom for a soprano!), but I can't say I'm disappointed, because I feel like we got just about the product that we worked for. And, considering the limited rehearsals, limited practice time, and limited personell (I say that, but for having to pick from a group of 18 random people, we still had an incredibly high level of musicality), I'm grateful that it turned out as much as it did. The good news is that Elder Zivic must not have been raised in the Santos household, because he wasn't as much of a critic as I was. I'm told that when we finished, he turned to President Mehr and said "wow!". After the closing prayer to finish the zone conference, he made a point of saying thank you for the musical number, saying that it was wonderful. Well, it's over now!

Besides that, it was a great zone conference, and I have exactly two pages left in my composition book. I figure I'll fill those up for the departing devotional, and then I'll come home with three important mission books. I'll have to digitize them at some point, and then I'll be able to share the cool stuff more fully.

The story for the week is that the Lord does some cool stuff. One of the things we talked about was the missionary mindset or paradime that we have here. We talked about needing to increase our faith and not allow ourselves to be limited by previous results or expectations. So, with that on our minds, we're been focusing on expecting miracles, and, well, the Lord delivers. Yesterday, we had one man teach himself the great apostasy, another opened up his Book of Mormon at the beginning of the lesson and said "I've been reading about baptism!", and another one asked for our help to stop drinking. My goal now is to just have miracles every day until I come home. I mean, afterwards too, but one thing at a time. Time goes fast; we're already in week three.

Anyway, that's a bit of my week. Is it weird that the thing that I write about the most is the song? Probably. But hey.

Love,

-Elder Santos