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

July 8, 2013

'MERICA!

I promise, I had already decided to put that there.

But in any case, I hope you all had a great 4th of July! Me, I didn't realize what day it was until the 5th, when a returned-from-New-York missionary asked us what we had done to celebrate. So...yeah I wasn't too american this year. But hey, hopefully you all celebrated for me!

I've got a story to tell you all this week. So remember Dominique, the investigator I think I told you about last week? Well, earlier this week, she called us to let us know that she had talked to a friend about the church, and that he had agreed to come this sunday. Miracle number one, because we've been doing our very best to get our members to do that, without much luck. Then, the next day, she calls us again, this time to tell us that she wants to get baptized. !!! Miracle number two requires no explanation. Miracle number three I wasn't actually there for-I was on an exchange friday in Point-à-Pitre. But, while I was with Elder Pratt, the other two elders were going around with Dominique teaching two of her friends that she wanted to present to us. That evening, we taught an english class at the church, to which Dominique and her first friend, Davey, attended. Elder Pratt was sort of joking around with him, and asked him "Hey, when do you want to get baptized? Same day as Dominique?"

He said yes.

Sunday, after church, Boris (the husband) told us that he feels already that he should be baptized, but he knows that he still has some more preparation to do (he works a lot, so we haven't been able to see him as much, and en plus, he smokes, but he really wants to stop).

So after a good handful of straight-up miracles this week, we've got three people scheduled to get baptized the 27th of July. We'll see if all three keep that date, but in any case, God has been giving us some incredible blessings.

Guys! This gospel is so easy to share! I mean, the best part is that it's true. Do we understand that? It's true, so the hardest part of missionary work is already done! All we have to do is to find people who are looking for the truth, and then help them to know where to find it, like we have been blessed to do. We have know clue who's ready. We have no idea who's going to say yes. But that doesn't matter, because God does. Go ahead and read Neal L. Anderson's talk from this last conference again (oh, you have computers so I guess you could technically watch it too), and pay close attention to the part where he promises us that the names will come to our mind, and that our mouth will be filled. Then, go ahead and do it! Having living prophets does nothing for us if we're not listening to them.

Anyway, that's the exciting news for my week. Also, I'm getting transfer calls this Friday, so I'll have some more news for you next week. Thank you all so much for your support-keep praying for me!

Oh, I should say this too. So my camera is broken. I don't know if it got wet or if I broke it myself somehow or what, but one day I went to turn it on, and all that I see on the display screen is a big black mark in the middle in the shape of an eye, and white static-y boxes on the outside. I think the vital organs are still intact though, because I'm pretty sure it takes pictures. At least, if I point it at something and push the button, it makes the sound and the flash. But then, I have no way of confirming if it works.

Oh my days, is this what film cameras were like? This must have been awful!

But yeah. That's that. Not sure what my plan of attack is for that(I would love to just be able to find and replace the broken parts), but I'm open to suggestions.

Yeah.

I love you!

-Elder Santos

July 2, 2013

I don't even have an excuse this time.

No holiday or anything. But I also only have 20 minutes left, so we won't dwell on that.

Hey family!

I want to start out by saying thank you for your emails and letters and packages. The last one I haven't gotten yet, but I'll let you know when it shows up.

This week-and-a-day has been fun. Honestly I'm having trouble trying to decide what to write here. Like this is my fourth try at this paragraph, which means that this email is probably going to be pretty short.

Last night we had a family home evening with the family Félicité (Our elders quorum president and wife) and the family Afway (an investigator family-mom, dad, and three kids). We started out teaching mostly Dominique (the wife), but Boris has also taken a big interest recently (in fact, he says that the difference for him came when we gave a priesthood blessing to Dominique). In any case, the point of the FHE was to be able to teach them how to do family home evenings themselves, so that they could continue to do it in the future. We talked about the need of unity in the family, and in general did a lot of things that made me think of all of you. I want to say that I have learned something recently-I really am blessed to have grown up in our family. "Is little, and broken, but still good". I've been here, talking to a crazy amount of people, and what I've learned is that the family is basically on the point of being nonexistent right now. Dominique and Boris are actually married, but believe me when I say that it is very very rare to find such a family. Lots of spirits are coming into the world in situations a lot worse off than mine. I want to thank you all for your examples and your love, and tell you that we really are blessed.

Also, since a couple people have asked; what is the difference between Martinique and Guadeloupe? Well, for the most part, I could still be on the same island. Like, if there hadn't been that little airplane trip to tip me off in the middle there, I probably wouldn't have been any the wiser. I guess there are a few food things that are slightly different (we have something called the bokit on Gwada), and the creole is different, but other than that, it really is almost exactly the same. The people, the climate, everything.

Really quick-did I remember to ask for a frisbee for my birthday? And/or did anyone read my mind and stick it in a box? If so, you're the best! I'll think about you every single p-day. If not, pas grave. Christmas will be here before you know it!

Anyway, I love you! Please. Please please please, for Pono and I, be best friends with your missionaries. Sometimes they just need a little love.

à plus,

-Elder Santos

June 24, 2013

The Work of Salvation

Did you all get to see it? I hope so, there was some cool stuff. More on that later.

Anyway. Fun week. Here's a couple highlights.

 

Saturday, our branch had a blood bank activity, so I signed myself up and got to go give blood. It was a lot quicker than I had expected, probably because I'm so used to giving plasma. But anyway, it wasn't to physically taxing. I was a little sleepy at points throughout the day, but really nothing to extreme. Hah, right after I finished up the nurse said "okay, so for the rest of the day, drink lots of water, don't exert yourself too much, and try to stay out of the sun". So...I drank lots of water for the rest of the day. Hah.

But I'm curious, will someone go and look up if that's going to restrict me from giving blood back in the states? I wouldn't think so-I mean technically I'm still in France, right?

 

Sunday night we got to attend the broadcast from the Marriott Center of "The Work of Salvation". It was the training of new mission presidents, to which were invited Full-time missionaries, ward council members, and everyone else who wanted to attend. The historic part of the event (in my opinion) came at the beginning, when L. Tom Perry said that missionaries would now start using computers to do online proselyting. No clue how that's going to work. Or when that might actually happen. But look for Elder Santos's facebook page, coming to an internet near you. Maybe.

 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: Some of the other cool parts.

-God isn't going to bless us with more of His children (through baptism) so long as we are not taking care of the ones that He has already given us. Think about that, the people that have already been baptized are every bit as loved by God as those who have not been, and He cares just as much about them. How about us? Do we care less about our less active members than we do about an investigator? Do we even know them? Elder Nelson also told us that we should be "setting a place at the table" for everyone that should be coming, not for everyone that we think is going to show up. Do we notice when people aren't at church? And will they feel that they are sitting in a seat that was just waiting for them, when they come?

-President Monson told the story of a branch president who wanted to have an architect in the ward, so he opened up the phonebook with the missionaries and picked one out. And just like that, they invited him to the home of the branch president to learn about the gospel. So if we think about that in our lives-do we really have less of a chance to know someone that God is preparing than does someone throwing darts at a phonebook? Are we really more likely to offend someone, offering them something that we are sure is a good thing, than we would be in doing so with a stranger? We're in such a good place to do missionary work, and we don't even take advantage of it!

 

Well, I'm going to stop there and try to get some individual responses in. Love you all!

-Elder Santos

June 17, 2013

Happy ___day!!!

Just because I'm covering multiple happy occasions in this one.

JJ, happy birthday! Sorry it sounds like it probably stunk. You can borrow mine this year if you want a redo.

Nicole, happy birthday! I hope Travis spoiled you beaucoup a lot and Mason didn't cry all day!

Papa, happy father's day! Turns out that mother's day changes for the french, but not father's day. Also, no one really celebrates father's day here. But I love you lots! I'll make you BFD when I get home.

JJ, happy father's day to you too. I'm probably not going to cook for you when I get home.

Mais à part ça... But apart from that

This week has been fun. For informational purposes, the bikes are going a lot better. My butt and legs are still sore, but I don't think about falling and dying in the road as much.

Also for informational purposes (I'm sending a separate email to mom this week, in which this paragraph will not appear. Merci to not talk about it.), our bikes got braquéd this week. We locked them up to a light post before a lesson, and when we came back afterwards they were on the ground, still locked up, but missing one wheel, two seats, two hand grips, and all of our lights. Repairs costed 200 euro. We went around to ask people what they had seen, to great success: we've narrowed down the suspect list to "one big guy in a blue shirt", "two big guys in white shirts", or a 14-year-old boy named Wendy. Hey, what's life without a little adventure?

The other cool part of the week was that on saturday morning we got to do a big service project, going and cleaning up a bunch of nasty crap in this field in Guadeloupe. It was supposed to be an activity for all of the members on Guadeloupe, but we ended up having about as many missionaries as members. Other than church members there were a couple other groups who had some people there, from the community and stuff like that. The cool thing was that it was a televised event-Sunday someone told Elder Sosa and I that they had seen us on TV. Go ahead and try if you're bored:Guadeloupe premier, june 15th, sometime in the evening. The place was called Belle Plaine. The bad news is that I think we might have made ourselves look like an american church (even though half the missionaries that were there are from Tahiti and Europe), but at the end they gave us a "beep beep, les Mormons!" (their version of hip-hip-hooray).

Other than that, we've been working hard to change the way we've been doing things down here. Elder Gammiette (a regional 70 from Guadeloupe since last conference, who was also the mission president here a year ago) came to a zone meeting with us last week, and one of the things that he said was that "The brethren absolutely do not want us to keep doing missionary work in the way that we have been doing it up until now". He talked about how we all know what the better way to do this is-we need to work with the members-but that we have said that for generations and nothing has changed. He asked us "Are we going to be the generation that changes things? Because if we are, then we will lay the foundation for every single missionary that comes after us". So, yeah. After a little bit of reprimandation, we've been spending a lot of time trying to make the change. You guys! Members are EVERYTHING in this work! The work of salvation in Washington is not, in fact, the responsability of the Missionaries with the help of the members. It is absolutely the other way around. And yeah, it takes effort. But since when does the Lord ask us to do easy things?

Anyway, I've got to get better at computer time management. Out of time again!

Je vous aime beaucoup, à plus! I love you much much more!

-Elder Santos

June 10 , 2013

Gwada!

Elder Santos

Les Palétuviers

Apt 17 Bat A

Moudong Sud

97112 Baie-Mahault

Guadeloupe

Good, well now that's out of the way. For those who have been wondering, anything that shows up for me in Martinique from now on will probably just be held onto until the next Zone Conference. Hopefully they'll remember to bring it.

But anyway! Yes, I am in Guadeloupe! I don't have my camera with me, but now that I know how p-day works here I should have it next time. In general, it's very similar to Martinique, except for the fact that there are less buildings where I am now than there were in Fort-de-France. Just to remind you, I am in Abymes, working with Elder Sosa.

MAIN CHARACHTERS:

Elder Sosa: I think I've already said that he is from Canada-I learned this week that he is also from a family from Honduras. He is the youngest of four children(but the third only beat him by 5 minutes), 22 years old, and has exactly one year more of mission time than me. He is a quiet person, but still enjoys cracking jokes and having fun. So far I've been loving working with him.

Elder Pratt: He came into the field one transfer after me-I actually just recently learned that he knew Elder Millett in the MTC! He was looking through my photos, stopped on a picture of him and I, and was like "hey, the Tahitian Missionary! He was great!" Crazy stuff. He's from Oklahoma (big Thunder fan), a hard worker who's doing his best and is making lots of progress in French. He is in the same branch as me, but one area over.

Elder Heiata: is his companion, who just started his last transfer. He is from Tahiti, and, true to form, loves laughing, people, and food.

The good news is that I've been speaking exclusively in French with Elder Sosa, which I haven't really gotten to do before now. The bad news is that our area is on bikes.

THE BIG THINGS: I'm still alive.

Because really, I wasn't sure about that the entire time. For those of you who don't know, I learned to ride a bike when I was about 9 (by my memory). Then, shortly thereafter my bike broke. So we put it in the shed, where old outdoor toys go to die. Since then, I haven't put foot on a bike. Until Wednesday, when we rode between rendez-vous on the side of a highway, a few feet away from cars going car speeds. So. Yeah. I've been praying a LOT, because this has, without a doubt, been the most mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausting experience of my mission. Prayers are, as always, what is keeping me alive. Thanks for that!

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT (kinda):

One great thing about this area is that we meet in the only church-owned building in Guadeloupe and Martinique combined. I know that the people in the building are the most important part, but believe me when I say that being in a place where the church is really established is more of a blessing than I ever could have appreciated at home. For those of you at home reading this, I say that the building you meet in, the stake to which you belong, the church auxilaries available to you, and all those other things around you really are greater blessings than you can imagine. God loves you so much! I hope one day to be able to see these faithful members here enjoying those very same blessings.

So did I mention that we're in a paid computer place now? I'm under 60 seconds left. I love you all though! Until next time, my prayers stay with you!

-Elder Santos

June 4, 2013

Hey all. Sorry I'm late...I actually don't have a good excuse this time. Mais bon But good.

Anyway, it's been a fun week. The big news came with transfer calls-I am leaving Martinique. This time tomorrow, in fact, I will be on a plane to Guadeloupe. What I know so far is that I will be working in the area of les abymes, with Elder Sosa. I've met him at our zone conferences-he is from Canada, and from a spanish family, so he is fluently trilingual. That should be cool, because I decided to try to learn spanish! It's just so frustrating meeting someone and not being able to talk to them. Wish me luck!

Quick story for the week-we were out working Friday afternoon (actually shortly after transfer calls), and were out knocking doors. Found a residence that was open, and decided to go all the way to the top. We knock the door on the right, and then we knock the door on the left. Nothing. Start going down to the next floor, and we run into a woman on her way up. So we start talking with her, explain who we are and all that, and then start talking about the Book of Mormon. She immediately accepts a return appointment for Sunday, and then asks if she can come to church! Okay, so it may not sound exciting for you, but that's the first time anyone has asked if they can come to church.

But yes, she came to church, we had a little lesson with her after church, and then she immediately bonded with some of the members. Like, they're already facebook friends with pictures up and everything.

But anyway, after that came Monday night, when our branch president invited us over for FHE. Everyone said some very nice things, and I must say that I really am sad to be leaving these people. I know that the Lord has got other things in store for me now and I'm going to go meet another great group of people, but still.

...also, this is my first time changing areas on my mission. Weird. Wish me luck with the packing! I should probably start that soon...

Anyway, sorry I don't have an address for you yet-I'll be sure to get it for next week. I'll try to get some pictures and other info too.

THE LITTLE THINGS: Actually, this is one that I've been thinking of for a while-but you've got to love black culture for one thing because it is very proud of itself. My example for this week is store names-since I've been here, I have actually seen stores with the following names-"Black Style"(Useful for being able to show Pono what she's NOT allowed to wear), "Black Hair"(Again useful for Pono), and "Black Nutrition"(Which, in what has to be a blow for civil rights everywhere, only sold protien powder). But then, I guess people must say the same thing about Americans, because I've also seen stores named "American Style", "U.S. Barbershop", and "McDonalds".

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: So as I was reading in Ether this past week, I realized something that I had never really thought about before, regarding the story of crossing the ocean. For the actual text, you can go to the beginning of Ether 6. But just put yourself in the shoes of these people for a moment. You just built these tight barques, and Jared's brother just showed up with some glowing rocks, which is pretty cool. But then, you all get into these boats with all your family and belongings, and you just head out into the ocean, "commending [yourself] unto the Lord". Soon enough, things start getting pretty crazy. Lots of wind, huuge storms. "mountain waves" and "terrible tempests", we read. I don't know how much these people knew, but if it were me, I might have started asking questions. "clearly something has gone wrong-I can't believe that God wanted us to be tossed about on the waves like this..."

But then I had an interesting thought-even the most violent winds, tossing us along on the waves of life, can be a blessing from God-so long as we're being tossed in the right direction. We are moving towards something better. Sometimes we wish that the trip were a little smoother, sometimes we want to know how much farther we have to go (remember that these people probably had no way of knowing on day 340 that they would be on dry land in a week). But you know what, the fact that we only see one day at a time allows us to excercise our faith. We don't really know where we are on our trip, or what's in store for us, but I can promise you that God knows just as perfectly where you are right now as he knew where those little barges were, all those thousands of years ago. And if it's going to take a "furious wind" to get you back to Him, then dang it, that's what He's going to give you. He loves you too much to do any less.

Well, that's about it. Picture comes from Church this week-me, the family Occolier, and Elder Johnston, who is also leaving Martinique after just under a year straight on the island.

I promise to come back with a mailing adress!

Je vous aime tous I love you all,

-Elder Santos