July 7, 2014

Happy 4th!

We celebrated by teaching a zone meeting about fasting and then having a Mcdonalds feast. No, the irony of it was not lost on us.

Speaking of which! So, I don't know if I wrote about this very well at all, but last September, we had a mission wide fast, after President taught us the principle of the fast, and we in turn taught it to our missionaries. He told us to plan for effective fasting through purpose, preparation, and prayer. It was really cool. I'll tell you all about it later.

But then, in this month's mission leadership council, he basically started it off by saying that we were going to cover the same basic doctrine. Fun fact; apparently, I am one of eight missionaries that was present for both of those mlc's. Well, this was Wednesday morning. From that point until lunchtime Saturday when we started our fast, we just ran around and taught almost all the members in our area the principle of fasting. We ended up having eight people fast with us. One of the good things about missions is that you get better at recognizing blessings when they come.

Other than that, Slorane is doing very well. Highlights include that she has been tearing through her gospel principles book like none other, and that when a 25-year old male investigator came to church on Sunday, she asked if she could help the missionaries teach him afterwards, and then told him that he needed to keep the law of chastity.

President and Sister Mehr are flying into Guadeloupe this week, and will be staying here until the 17th (sound like an important date to anyone else?). We have district conference this saturday/sunday, and then Zone conference next Tuesday. Wish me luck!

That's really about all that I've got for the moment. Keep on praying. Pray for miracles. Oh, I just thought of one last thing.

So, in connection with his lesson on fasting, President Mehr sent us a quote from Lorenzo Snow (teachings, chapter 17). "I know not any sacrifice which I could possibly make that I was not willing to offer that the Lord might grant our request". I often use Matthew 13:45-46 with investigators to teach priorities. By definition, our highest priority is that thing for which we are willing to sacrifice everything else to have. It is both interesting and important to know what your highest priority is, because, as Elder Maxwell teaches, "What we insistently desire, over time, is what we will eventually become and what we will receive in eternity". The frightening truth is that God is going to give us exactly what we want. Free agency is more than being allowed to follow our desires, but it means in fact that God will support our decision and grant our request (Alma 29:4). What do you desire the most? What request do you make of the Lord, for which you are willing to make any sacrifice?

There we go, that sort of looks like an email. I love all of you!

-Elder Santos

The picture is from this morning's sunrise hike at la pointe des chateaux. I've officially been on this island long enough to do the same hikes twice.

June 30, 2014

Just one thing...

Slorane got baptized on Saturday. I got to give her the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday. Picture is with her entire family. Karine is the mom, and Oceane and Matis are the younger sister and brother, respectively.

So, that was really cool.

I love you!

-Elder Santos

June 23, 2014

Guess who!

POWER EMAILS!!!

So a big thank you to Pono and to Brother Caldwell, whose letters I received this past week. I especially liked having the missionary update!

Anyway, let's talk a bit about Slorane, shall we?

For those of you who don't remember, Slorane is the 14 year-old daughter of Karine, who has been supposed to be baptized twice now. Well, recently (although I don't remember if it was before the last two weeks or not), we started teaching Slorane again, because Karine wanted to put her life in order, but she said that she wants her daughter to get baptized first. We talked to Slorane, and explained to her that, yes, she should be baptized, but that she should NOT be baptized if it was not her choice. So we started talking about it, we actually read 2 Nephi 9: 23-24 with her, and she was like "ok, well then I'm going to get baptized this Saturday". Well, we explained that maybe she should be going to church consistently before being baptized. So we decided to have her go to church three Sundays in a row before getting baptized. Which makes baptismal Saturday the 28th of June, this week. So we'll see what happens with that. Since we set this date, she has been power reading her Book of Mormon. Actually, an interesting side note to this story is that, unforunately, Slorane's old boyfriend died very recently, and she has been thinking a lot about that. But, yeah, she's been reading her book of Mormon, marking up the stuff that she likes, coming to church on her own, and, just generally being really cool. So we're working on that! And I feel a lot better about it this time than I ever have in the past.

On the other hand, Karine has been much harder to get a hold of, but she has been showing a real desire to get baptised. In her prayer for us this past week, she prayed "please make it so that I get baptized very soon". So we're working on it!

Also, tahitian day. They did tahitian dance and everything. It wasn't any PCC, but it was still lots of fun. I learned like three cords on the Ukulele, and I decided that I'm going to need a real one when I get home. Double stringed? Plz?

Oh and Mom, as far as the package question goes, I thought about it, and the only thing that comes to mind is that President Mehr has approved two books for our mission- Kimball's "the Miracle of Forgiveness", and Callister's "The Infinite Atonement". I don't know if I have the weight for those things in my suitcases, so if they exist in paperback, that would be cool. If not, I don't really know. Socks? Not tons. I don't know.

Guaaahahh!

Email time always feels like I'm on one of those cooking shows trying to prepare twelve meals in one hour. I'm like "I barely know how to make rice!"

I love you all, and am praying for you.

-Elder Santos

June 9, 2014

Just pictures.

Ok, so secretly I'm planning on taking one week to write a quality group email, and the next week to respond to individual emails. In either case, there's just not a whole lot of time.

Here's some pictures! Trinidad was great. Love you!

-Elder Santos

June 2, 2014

Personally, my favorite one is the baby one.

Stories for the week!

-I blessed a baby on Sunday. Linaël Taïna Pedre. She's the daughter of a recent convert in our area, a single mother who chose me to do the blessing. Funny thing is, she never actually asked me myself. Our branch president told me in a CEP a while back. So, yeah, that was interesting. 

-So do you remember Karine and Slorane from a while back? Well, some stuff happened and we hadn't seen them for a while, but then out of no where on Thursday she called us and asked us to come over! So we went over, and she explained that she really wants to put her life in order, and she asked for our help. She wants Slorane to get baptized first, so we're going to work with her and we'll see what we can do! She's a very intelligent kid. It was just kind of one of those tender mercy moments, the Lord letting us know that He's still aware of us.

-On Tuesday, we went and picked up a branch missionary, hoping to take him to teach several of our investigators that we had rendez vous with, and one in particular that we thought that he would be a good fit for. Well, of course, every one of those rendez vous fell through. As we were getting back into the car, a man came up to us and started talking to this branch missionary. Over the next twenty minutes, we found out that this man had gone to church and studied with the missionaries for three years, and that he wanted to get baptized, but didn't want to leave his girlfriend that he was not married to. Two years ago, he had decided to stop everything, and he hadn't talked to missionaries since then. Well, to make the story shorter, we ended up taking his number, and we're going to start teaching him again. He and his girlfriend live in different houses, so as long as we can get them to live the law of chastity, there is nothing that would keep him from getting baptized. Cool, right?

-I don't know if I ever mentioned this yet, but I'm leaving for Trinidad tomorrow morning. No, it's not a transfer-I'm coming back Thursday night. But if you remember, back in December, we had a Mission Leadership Conference where I left Guianne to go to Trinidad a few days. Same thing. So. That will probably be super inspiring and stuff. Details to come!

-My writing skills have not improved since I've been on my mission. But, as a side note, my handwriting may have! I've been practicing holding my pen with three fingers and forming my letters from the top. Also, I now write in my journal in cursive french.

-Welcome home, Jack!

-Thursday was our priesthood commemoration activity. We went for a hike in the woods. I got to carry somebody across a stream on my back!

-Beach jumping photos! This was the best one I had of Elder Harrison and I jumping. Yep.

May 26, 2014

I was an unwise steward of email time.

And therefore have none left. I'm sorry about keeping on doing this! But, everything is going well.

Just one quick story. After our farewell, we went and did the little eating food thing at the Millett household. Well, Mama Quinton gave me a skittles book. Three bags of skittles. And, for some reason, I've been saving one of them. I think the idea was to eat it on the way home or something. Didn't work. I decided to open it up this past week. This is what it looked like.

Love you!

May 19, 2014

A thousand words...

his picture. Is my favorite. So, yeah, that's going to be the meat of my email this week.

But other than that, it really was a good week. Heavenly Father was basically just throwing people at us to teach. Here's a quick story.

So, last Monday, I received, for the second time in my mission, a referral from church headquarters. A man named Pierre, who lives in our area, had asked for a missionary visit through mormon.org. We contacted him, and he asked us to come over Sunday afternoon. So, that's what we did! At first, we were talking, asking how he had heard of the church and everything, and he said that he had met someone in France who had told him about the church. "I'm more interested in the book, for now". So we sang, prayed, and gave him a Book of Mormon. At the end, he opened up a little bit more, and we found out several things about him. First off, the person who had talked to him about the church was his girlfriend, and she had recently been baptized in France. Second, she had been giving him missionary lessons over the phone for a while now. Third, he was planning on going back to France soon, and has already decided that he wants to get baptized on July 12th. So, yeah. That was our cool miracle for the week.

We also had to go to les urgences at the hospital this week. I debated on whether or not to include this story, but here we go! So yeah, a missionary which shall remain nameless got hit by a car while they were on their bike this week. Not seriously hurt, nothing broken, just very sore. I prefer to not give the name, because I don't know if they're planning on telling this story to their family just yet, but hey, it's an exciting one. As an interesting side note, french emergency rooms are much more calm than one would expect from a place with "emergency" in it's name. We show up, there's a line to talk to a receptionist, and when we finally get to her, the following interesting conversation ensues:

"Hi, my friend just got hit by a car, and would like to see a doctor."

"Okay, well can I see your [french social security card]?"

"No, actually, we're american. But we just wanted to see a doctor to make sure that everything is okay, and to-"

"Well we can't do anything for you if you don't have your card! How are you going to pay?"

"...well...we could just pay normally, I guess. Like I said, my friend just got hit by a car, so we would really like to see a doctor."

"Alright, well we need a copy of an identity card, two phone numbers, and a street address."

"Actually, I don't really know what the exact address is."

"Well, we can't do anything for you if we don't have the address!"

"...alright, we'll make a phone call..."

So yeah. Eventually we figured everything out. Everyone is fine now, but french hospitals are ridiculous.

And that's my story!

Love,

-Elder Santos