March 3, 2014

Surprise!

A couple fun stories for today, but I'll try to put things in a sort of order.

First off, and just to put things in context, I should explain that our biggest struggle for the past couple weeks has always been being able to have enough time in our area to work with our members and investigators, rather than just running around for administrative things. So, a couple stories about that.

One is that we had a meeting at the church just about every night this week-Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. And the thought ran through my mind that service in the church is a big time commitment, especially for people who aren't missionaries and might have other things that they could be doing. I appreciate the example of those who choose to spend their time in the service of the Lord.

Also, during our meeting on Thursday, our branch president turned to me and told me that a recent convert, named Alline Pedre, was planning on presenting her baby for a name and a blessing on Sunday, and that she had asked me to do the blessing. So, that's cool. Turns out it didn't end up happening yesterday, because the baby was sick and didn't end up coming to church. So we'll see what happens with that in the future!

Other cool story from this week is about Karine. Wait, one quick note before that.

So I decided that when I grow up, I want to be like Dominique Afoy. I've already spoken about her before, she's our recent convert who is a missionary work machine. She just lives and breathes her (still growing) faith, and shares what she has with everyone. And people respond in an incredible way.

Okay, back to Karine. She's a good friend of Dominique's, and in fact is a referral that she gave to Elder Sosa and I before she was baptized. We only ever got to see her once before I left though. Apparently, afterwards, the missionaries continued to teach her for a while, but she decided to stop taking the missionary lessons for a while. This past week, Elder Tolman thought of her, and we decided to pass by to say "hi". When we yelled at her house, she was on the phone with Dominique, who was, again, telling her that she should get baptized. She told us later on that that same morning, she had been crying and prayed to God to send her someone that could help her change her life. Nous voici! Then, this morning, we got a call from Dominique, who wanted to tell us that Karine has asked to be baptized on March 22nd. Miracles!!!

Also, for those of you who aren't aware, tonight marks the first official night of carnaval celebrations. So be safe and stay out of downtown!

Avec amour,

-Elder Santos

February 23, 2014

Dear Family,

I'm not even going to pretend.

But, pictures!

This week: Inactive families coming to church, visiting members, doing exchanges, castrating pigs, companion's birthday, taking a boat to les saintes, visiting the baptism of Dominique Afoy's cousine, singing in empty catholic churches. I'll share journal entries when I get home.

Love,

-Elder Santos

February 17, 2014

That's all I got...

Dear family,

It has been the longest week that I've had in a long time. And honestly, I have no clue why. Brief run-down of key events.

Tuesday, we woke up early and took Elder Maoni to the airport. We also moved around a bunch of laundry to get a new apartment ready to welcome sisters.

Wednesday, I don't know what we did. Actually, Elder Peterson just reminded me that we went to a baptism for an ex member. Oh, and that we did service for another brother. Like, real, big boy service. We hauled gravel and sand onto his roof.

Thursday, we had a zone meeting! We talked about obedience, and it was suuper cool. My scripture for the week is 1 Nephi 20:18. It's actually a quote from Isaiah, which leads to it reading pretty differently in french than in english. French is cooler:  "18 Oh! si tu étais attentif à mes commandements! Ton bien-être serait comme un fleuve, et ton bonheur comme les flots de la mer." Oh! if you had listened to my commandments! Your well-being as a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea

I add my testimony that obedience is a sure pathway to happiness, like the waves of the sea.

Thursday two new sisters were supposed to fly in to Guadeloupe, but they missed their flight. So...

Friday we went to pick up the sisters. Sister Tenny spent a couple months in france last year on an exchange program, and Sister Riley didn't know that she was going to be speaking french (a language that she has never studied) until she got to Trinidad. So that's pretty cool, right?

Saturday we attended yet another baptism, to which a cool investigator of ours assisted.

Sunday was church. We were supposed to have two talks, and neither of the people showed up (well, one of them did, but only five minutes before the end of sacrament meeting). So that was fun!

I realized that if I use the enter key enough, it seems like I actually wrote a substantial email!

Which is good, because I've gotta go.

I love you all! Pono, félicitations! Sort of... Go home tired! You and Elder Tolman go home the same day, btw.

-Elder Santos

February 10, 2014

So, I guess I'll just share the story real quick. Saturday was the baptism, but Friday night during a baptismal interview our investigator decided that she didn't want to be baptized the next day. So sorry for the bad promise last week-especially since I just saw that that is going on the ward update (it's what you get for counting your chickens!). But in any case, we're going to keep teaching Fabienne and we'll set a new goal with her and keep moving forward. More to come!

Oh, hello by the way.

So yeah, Pono is right, we are on the same transfer schedule. Happy first day of the transfer! Transfer calls came in, and I will be Elder Tolman's final companion (or, in missionary vocabulary, I will be killing him). We are staying in the Morne-a-l'eau area, no terribly big changes. The big news on the island is that we are officially going to have two sets of sisters on Guadeloupe starting next transfer, and the extra companionship on the island means that there are now 18 missionaries in Guadeloupe-the biggest zone in our mission.

In other news, the senior couple Richmonds is doing really well. We finished up their informal training process this past week, which meant that Sunday was the first entire day that Elder Tolman and I spent in our area since Zone Conference. It was very fun. With so many things to do, our area has been feeling a little neglected recently, so hopefully in the upcoming week we'll get to show it a bit more love. Interestingly enough, missionary work is profoundly satisfying. Just being out and doing the work itself.

Elder Tolman is such a boss.

...I asked him what else I should write about for this week, and that was his only idea. I mean, it's true.

One thought, which came to me as I was preparing a talk for this past Sunday. If the prophet were to stand up today and say that the second coming was going to happen in a week, what would we do? Assuming that we had the faith to believe him, how would we spend that week? What would we do differently than what we do now? And then, the obvious follow up question-why are we not doing those things now? D&C 64:23-25. There are only two days for the Lord-today and tomorrow. Let's live today in a way that, tomorrow, we won't have any regrets.

Oh, and as far as pictures go-I didn't actually take any, but Elder Tolman grabbed my camera earlier today and snapped a few shots of our apartment. Mom, pretty sure you're the only one interested in seeing pictures of empty rooms, but here ya go.

Je vous aime de tout coeur. Rendez votre temoignage plus souvent, et le Seigneur vous rendra le sien; je vous en temoigne. I love you with all my heart. Bear your testimony often, and the Lord will make you his, I witnessed to you.

-Elder Santos

February 3, 2014

YEAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!

That's about the Seahawks, by the way. That's my team! Ps, I don't care if it was a boring blowout, please save the game for me. I'll watch every second.

Anyway, sorry if I sounded a little freaked out last week. It's true, it was crazy, but it was also lots of fun.

This week's main activity has been training the Richmonds and preparing them to take full control of senior couple activities. It's been taking lots of time, but it's going to be a good long-term investment.

Even with very limited time in our proselyting area, we still saw some super cool stuff this week. First off, the family Afoy (Boris, Dominique, and kids) told us that they are planning to go to Utah to be sealed in september. So, I'm super bummed because I won't get to be there, but I'm also super duper stoked for them. Annemarie had her sixth birthday this week (see photos).

Other news is that, with any luck, next week's email should include pictures of people dressed in white. That's right, the 8th of February is this week, and Fabienne seems like she'll be holding her date. She loved church on Sunday, and the two boys are making friends quickly. We get to go teach her the law of chastity tonight, so that will be fun. Believe it or not, it's a fun lesson to teach.

This experience with Fabienne has also been a huge testimony builder of the fact that God answers our prayers of faith. When I came to guadeloupe this transfer, Elder Tolman and I decided that we were going to baptize, because we honestly believed that it was what the Lord wants. Then, there were tons of distractions and things keeping us back, but we kept praying and working, and the Lord sent us such a wonderful, humble, prepared person, who is scheduled to be baptized the last Saturday of the transfer. It's amazing.

Holy cow, I just realized that it's week six. Transfer calls this week!

Anyway, that's all I've got.

I love you all! Your prayers of faith work miracles every day in the life of a boy who, otherwise, would have no clue what he was doing.

-Elder Santos

January 27, 2014

"We're gonna survive, you know..."

I said that to Elder Tolman on Wednesday morning. Basically, as fun as organizing zone conferance was (and it really was fun), there were a few moments when everyone was coming at us with their problems at the same time, and we honestly just didn't have answers for them. So in one particularly stressful situation...we just left. Well, we left to go get the new senior couple, but it was good way to give us some calm time. For a little while. And as we were just kind of sitting there with steam coming off of us, I had that thought and said it to Elder Tolman. He smiled.

Dear family,

We're still alive. But it really was a very full week.

Monday was filled with preparing/cleaning for the upcoming visitors. Tuesday, President and Sister Mehr and the assistants showed up, as well as the ten missionaries from Martinique. We got them all sleeping somewhere, somehow. Wednesday was the Zone Conference itself. Assistant Elder Anderson came with me to go pick up our four sisters for the conference, and...the car battery died outside of their appartment. So we got to push start the car with four sisters. Super fun. The Conference itself was super cool. But hold on. Thursday was all of Guadeloupe's interviews, and we actually managed to get some really cool proselyting time in. Also more on that later. Friday, the Monson's (an administrative couple from Trinidad) and the Richmond's (our very own new senior couple!) showed up. So we got them going to their respective places, got everyone somewhere. Saturday was the beginning of our District Conference, which was really cool. I got to translate one talk into english, and I got to translate one other talk into french. Which was super tough. People complimented my french, but I'm sure they didn't understand everything. Sunday was the other part of district conference. Super fun as well. And then, today, we woke up at 4am to go watch the sunrise at Pointe des Chateaux! See the picture.

So, for a little more detail (but not much),

So President came into Zone Conference with the intention of teaching us about the difference between repentance of sin and remission of sin. Really bold stuff. But, he got about five minutes in, and a few questions came up, and we basically spent his entire teaching time giving what he called a "spiritual jam session". Which I found to be a perfect name for it (everyone just shows up with their brain and not much else and we're just like "yeah, let's just make stuff up, ya know?"). It was actually really cool. But one of the things that I really took away from Zone Conference was from Sister Mehr, who talked about repentance. What we focused on was the fact that repentance cannot be complete, or cannot be effective, if it is simply the process by which we stop sinning. God has not given us repentance just as a way to empty ourselves. We need, rather, to focus on how we can replace the wicked things within us light and truth. That is truly the process by which we become "new creatures"(Mosiah 27).

Thursday!!! We went to teach a woman named Fabienne, who we had already taught two times before, and who had come with her two young sons to church theSunday before. We had set a baptismal date with her for the 8th of February. So that night we followed up on the baptismal date, and she told us that it seemed really fast to her (something that we had heard before). So, we asked her if we could make a plan together, to see just what it would take for her to be ready by that date. She ran and grabbed her planner, and we proceeded to write in the dates of all of our rendezvous before her baptism. We were all just very excited. It was a huge blessing for me to see how people are prepared for the gospel; she shared a story about how right at the end of the year she had been going through some really hard times, and that she had started to really pray and ask God for more help and direction in her life. And then, a few days later, we showed up at her door!

Also, the Richmonds are a very kind couple from Tahiti. Very, very polynesian. They had us eat with them Saturday as soon as we went grocery shopping. They basically used half of what we had just bought for them for that one meal. Then, there was Sunday after church, when they invited us to eat again, and cooked just about all of the other half of food for us. So...there goes that. They're just so loving and caring. Also, we had to teach them how to send an email to their children. So...it might take them a while to get on their feet, but they're gonna be super helpful in the long run. We're really happy to have them.

So basically I just spent all my time to write a bigger family email. So sorry for not getting off any personal responses this week, but thank you! I love you!

-Elder Santos

January 13, 2014

Whoops!

Totally just ran out of time last week. Sorry.

But in any case, je suis bien arrivé en I arrived safely in  Guadeloupe (I'll be interested to see how that is translated, because I can't think of how to express that thought in english). I'm with Elder Tolman, the other Zone Leader, who is from Idaho. He's actually a really cool guy. Very good missionary, and I'm learning a lot. I don't know how or why, but the best part is that we've been together for like two weeks now, and we just haven't really had any problems. Like we had our companionship inventory this week, and we were just like "it's kinda weird, but I honestly haven't had anything that I've been upset about". So that's going well.

Being in a big zone like this is way different, and it keeps us running, but I've been experiencing a weird phenomenon ever since I've gotten here-I've been super tired every night when I go to pray, but at the same time I've just been really happy about nothing in particuliar. It's an unusual, but pleasent feeling.

There's so many people here that I'm probably not going to get to introduce all of them, except as they appear in stories. A lot of new missionaries here, which means that a bunch of the elders in my zone I had never met before coming here. French side it's a weird thing. I got to go on surprise exchanges with two of our younger missionaries this past week, which was a good chance to get to know them a bit more.

We've got Zone Conference coming up next week, so I'll get to participate in planning one of those for my first time. A few days after that, we'll have a new senior couple arriving in Guadeloupe from Tahiti, and hopefully we'll be able to transfer a lot of responsabilities to them and focus more on the missionary work part of things.

Speaking of which, things here are going pretty well. A few finding miracles this past week have been good for the morale, but the best story comes from Sister Afoy.

Oh! Speaking of which, do you remember a while ago, when I was talking about our investigators Dominique and Boris? Well now that I'm back here, they are brother and sister Afoy. Dominique teaches the gospel principles class, Boris is a ward missionary and home teaching companion to the district president, Kenan is baptized, and Nathan had his eighth birthday yesterday-his baptism is on Saturday. I love this family so much. I'm happy to be with them.

Anyhow, Dominique called us last Tuesday and said "hey, we're going to baptize my cousine. Come over at 4 to teach her!" Well, with Dominique's diligent follow-up efforts, Sister Hamel has read the first 14 chapters of the book of mormon, had spiritual experiences with it, and came to church yesterday. Seriously, when a member loves an investigator enough to get involved, things just happen.

Alright, well that's about it for now. I love you all!  I love you both!

-Elder Santos