April 22, 2013

Bonjour à toutes et à tous, Hello to you all

Let's jump right in! I'm hoping to attach two pictures to this email, so fingers crossed!

I wanted to start out by wishing a biiig happy birthday wish to my best friend in the whole world! I love you Sister Santos! Sorry I forgot to say that last week! Also a big congratulations on your new assignment-I'm positive that you are going to do great. I pray for you every day.

Other than that, the big news from this week is that we got transfer calls! And the four of us that are on Martinique aren't moving at all! So not too much to talk about there. But, the exciting news (we've known this was going to happen for a while now) is that we are going to get two new missionaries here this week. One of them is coming from French Guiana, and the other one is coming from Provo. In fact, all I know about him is that his name is Miyasaki, and that he's actually from Hawaii. But hey, we should have some new charachters coming up next week! Just to give you the run-down, they are supposed to be covering the southern end of Martinique, but in fact for the moment they will be staying in our apartment in Fort-de-France, and they will not have a car. So...I don't know how we are thinking this is going to work, but I'm sure we'll burn that bridge when we get there. The biggest change that we'll have to deal with for now is just having four in the apartment. Like I may have mentioned before, it's really not all that big, but it's housed four in the past, so it'll work out somehow.

I really don't have a whole lot of news for this week. Come to think of it, that can't be a good sign. But...I'll work on making sure I have something great to share for next time! Just some quick experiences though. We went contacting in the rich area of Fort-de-France the other day (it's actually called Bellevue-go figure), and I discovered that even after just three months, I've gotten into a weird state of mind where white people stress me out. No joke, we were walking down a street and there were more white people than black people, and for some reason in the back of my mind I was thinking "I feel like I shouldn't be here...". So...going back to Washington and Provo will be quite an adventure. Oh, but probably my favorite moment of the week happened just this morning-we went to a little recreation area by the ocean to play basketball with some amis, and afterwards as I was just hanging around on a park bench, a pair of Jehovah's Witnesses came up to contact me. Hahaha I think the best part was when they were asking where I was from and all. 

"You're here on vacation?"

"Well, not exactly."

"Oh, so you're here for some sort of formation (that's the word in french, I'm pretty sure in English we would say training)?"

"...yeah, you could say that."

Anyway, eventually they found out who we were and left. But hey, crazy stuff happens when you're not in a shirt and tie.

The other fun thing that happend this week was that our Zone Leaders came to Martinique for two days, because neither of them has ever been here, and they wanted to know the island and us a bit better. So for Wednesday and Thursday we were a trio, and it was a great learning experience. One thing I learned is that you really do have to talk to everyone. Gordon B. Hinckley was once asked how he got so many couples at the height of their professional careers to give up everything and go serve as mission presidents. His answer? "We ask them". And while, granted, the results aren't always the same when trying to teach people, one important principle is that people cannot accept an invitation that you do not offer them.

Well, keep on praying for me! I couldn't make it by without you guys. And keep yourselves safe; I hear life has gotten a little crazy recently for the U.S.ofA. Know that I pray for you all!

Bizus,

-Elder Santos

Ps-photo is from the top of a building in Bellevue. You can see a lot of Fort-de-France from there (note the stinking huge cruise ship). Also, the sun was in my face, so you'll have to excuse the grimace.

Nothing but a photo...

But I talked about it last week, so I'll just send it along anyway. There's my Martinique Beach.

April 15, 2013

What did you do with your Monday?

I spent mine at a beach on Martinique.

Well. Part of it. And admittedly, I was unable to go into the water. But still!

And how are all of you doing? I hope you all had a great week. Keep in mind-now is not too late to decide that last week was great.

Coincidentally, my last week was great! We knocked an incredible amount of doors, and we also got to have some pretty cool experiences, especially early in the week.

Tuesday, we started out with a Zone meeting (it's kind of like Zone conference's punk little brother-best part is that Martinique participates by Skype, and as such we are very lucky to really hear half of what goes on) in which we all got our butts thoroughly kicked. But hey, what's gotta happen has got to happen. Afterwards, we set a goal to have one solid contact from the time that we left our apartment to the time that we reached the area we would work in that day, 20 minutes away. Well, God did us one better. We're walking down the street, and a middle-aged man yells out to us "Mormon!". Some of you might be surprised to know that that happens all the stinking time-for some reason, as soon as people see us, they feel obliged to yell whatever words they happen to know in relation to us (Just today, as we were walking down the street-"Ey! Joseph Smith!"). But then he took a deviation from the normal routine by asking us to come talk to him. So we walked over, not really knowing what to expect. He starts by asking us a little bit about ourselves, but then gets into his story. His name is Phillipe, he speaks english because he spent a chunk of his life living in the US. He's not what you would call a "practicing" catholic, but he does say his morning and evening prayers. He has a drinking problem. He has three children in Martinique that he loves very much. He doesn't see them very often, by their choice. He knew the missionaries a little bit in the states. He wants to stop drinking and be better for his children. He wants to change. Now, I will be perfectly honest with you-if we were just going around trying to find someone to teach and we saw this guy, I very likely would not have tried to talk to him. Even now, he's got a lot of changes to make and it's not going to be easy for anyone, but I thought of Samuel's experience, in which he learned that God looks upon the heart. Elder Shepherd and I had the chance to tell him that he has a Heavenly Father that loves him and wants the very best for him. We told him that thanks to his Father, that he could change.

Then there was Wednesday. We started out by knocking an absurd number of doors in an area that I haven't really worked in yet, and then we started the walk to another area to work. Decided to go exploring by a new road we hadn't ever been on before, but which we were relatively sure would eventually get us where we needed to go. Pretty sure that's the definition of a good idea. But. We're walking along, and halfway there, we walk by a young man who was just getting into his car to leave. He saw us and stopped us, asking us who we were and what we were doing. We told him that we were representatives of l'église de Jésus-Christ des Saints des Derniers Jours (Mele, don't translate that-if they can't figure it out, then that's the price you pay for being oblivious), and then he said something, the likes of which I never thought I would ever hear ever. "J'aurais bien aimé appartenir à cette église".(literally, "I would have liked to belong to this church"...but I'm not sure if it's supposed to be in the past conditional tense, or the present conditional...?) ...wow. So, we exchanged information and told him we would come back later. That night, I realized just how unlikely that experience was. First, in location-we just chose to go trailblazing that day, and our meandering course just happened to take us by his house. Then, there's the timing-it takes, in a relative scheme of things, a very small amount of time to get from your house to your car-a very small window in which you are in the street. If he hadn't been getting into his car at the exact moment that he was, we absolutely never would have seen him. This was a place where almost no missionary would have ever gone contacting, so him being found at home was very nearly impossible. But, magically, we happened to be walking by that place at that time, and he chose to open his mouth and talk to us. That, for me, is a miracle. Thank you, Heavenly Father.

But that's about enough for this week. For your general information purposes, today officially starts the last week of this transfer, and it has flown by. I unfortunately don't feel as though I have accomplished as much as I would have liked to, but I'm on God's timeline. Or at least, if I'm not, it's within my control to choose to be so. So yeah, Friday will be transfer calls, and I will officially know where I will be and who I will be with for the next six weeks. Hopefully no one has been putting things in the mail recently.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: So fun fact, I'm reading through D&C right now. I strongly recommend it to all of you as well, but anyway. I'm in section 76 right now, and just read the prolific phrase. "After all the testimonies that have been given of Him, here is the testimony, last of all, that we give of Him: That He lives!" I did that from memory, so it might not be exact. But my point is that, for the many of us who are still in the process of getting our testimony, we may feel that we're not moving fast enough, or we may feel deep misgivings, fears that what we profess to be faith may in fact be nothing more than a fragile belief. Remember that Elder Holland told us that believing is not something to be ashamed of. I add to that statement the additional fact that we have some great testimonies to rely on, while ours are still in the works. Maybe I believe that He lives, but I'm sure that Elder Holland knows. I'm positive that Joseph Smith knew it too. And I know that each of us can know as well, in a process that passes largely through belief. We have many testimonies of Him-most importantly, of the fact that He lives.

THE LITTLE THINGS: I am grateful for the blessing of walking in the rain. I still am surprised evey time I think of how far from home I am (And I'm not as far as I could be-see Pono), but when I am walking in the rain, for just a little while, I'm home.

Oh, and fun fact-my glasses are magical! Every time I wear them, it rains. Another fun fact-I can't see squat through my glasses in the rain.

Aand, the place is closing again. Thank you all for your prayers! Know that I love you!

-Elder Santos

ps. Pictures! Actually, I wanted to send three, but it's not even letting me do two. Ps, I'm a water bender.

April 8, 2013

Happy General Conference!

In the spirit of conference, I decided to attach a picture of me chillin with my bro. I call him Neal.

 

But hey, enough of how famous I am.

 

Hello friends! How is everyone doing?

 

Me, I'm doing great. I got to watch my first session of conference as a missionary, so that's as good as you can ask for. Hah, but really-Elder Shepherd says that as a missionary, conference is cooler than christmas. I haven't had a Christmas in the field yet, so I can't really say, but I believe him. In response to some questions, yes, I got to watch conference live. I mean, for as far away as it feels, I'm only two hours off of mountain time (only one further than most of you, though admittedly in the other direction). So Saturday and Sunday were mostly filled with that. Hah, I was just thinking that I didn't want to give away any details that would ruin the surprise for Pono, but then I realized that she's not going to read this for another week, so hopefully by then she will have seen it. Pono-if you haven't watched conference yet, don't read the spoilers! And yes, it is a big deal. This is as cool as it gets.

...Isn't it fun just kind of getting an unfiltered stream-of-conciousness thought train? Hold on tight, things get pretty crazy up here sometimes.

 

Anyway, conference was great. Confession time-I'm pretty sure this is the first time that I was awake, attentive, and in attendance for all ten hours. And I've got to say, I wasn't disappointed! I think I'll have to try that again next time. I would love to simply throw all of the cool stuff I found at you all at once, but I forgot my notebook at home. I'll probably end up spreading that out over the next six-ish months. Here, we'll just get a couple big thoughts. (Pono, now would be the time to skip ahead)

 

First off-I'M SO MAD. Well, maybe not mad, because Elder Holland said that "envy is the mistake that just keeps on giving". So I'm not upset at others' good fortune, but I am slightly...envious...of those BYU choir students who had the chance to sing for the Saturday afternoon session of conference. It was interesting seeing many, many people that I knew, including tons of faces from concert choir last year (I saw the two basses who sat on either side of me for eight months), and two of my good friends-Mckenzie Moline, who was in Elder Millett's ward, and Sydney Wise, who was one of my very best friends at school. Hey friends! Know that I'm thinking of you! And wishing that I could have had that chance too-Pono and I totally should have been there!! Okay, I'm over it.

 

But as for the actual conference itself...I think one of my favorite talks was from the Saturday Morning Session-a member of the seventy who spoke about God's forgiveness. The amazing message that he shared was that God loves us more than we think-that He actually wants to forgive us. Think of the moments when we mess up the worst-the pain we feel and the desire we have to be liberated from our guilt (another cool insight from this conference-guilt is to the spirit what pain is to the body. In both cases, it is not an illness itself, but rather an indicator that something is wrong. -DABednar); in those moments of our greatest imperfection, God's desire to forgive us far outstrips our own desire to be forgiven. The proof? Never has someone made the proper effort to be forgiven without God's giving immediate pardon. Sometimes, He doesn't even wait that long-"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". To reach into another talk-with one brilliant exception, God has only ever had imperfect children.(-JRHolland) I imagine that he's used to the fact by now. God wants to forgive. The question, then, becomes this-do we want to be forgiven?

 

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: It was somewhere up there.

 

Other than that, this week has been fairly in line with the last couple. One good thing that has been happening this transfer is that we are getting a lot more comfortable with the members; we're working with a wider range of members, and actually have had a few people approaching us to work with us now. We talked with one woman this week who grew up in a family of thirteen children-the missionaries knocked on her door and taught her family, but she was the only one to be baptized. Had another chance to visit with a couple, during the course of which the wife told us that her husband read the Book of Mormon with the express intention of proving it false to the missionaries. Today, he is the Elders Quorum President and one of the strongest members in Martinique. I guess one of the great lessons I've gotten to learn is that there is no such thing as ordinary people. That goes for you too, you know. You have something that makes you extraordinary. And as great as it is to have, that's not why your Father gave it to you. You have been placed in a very special position to share your light with others and make them better. I pray that you have the courage to do so.

 

On another note, Happy Birthday Mom! 67 and still going strong! (:P don't hate me). I was supposed to put in a photo to your letter, but the photo printer thing didn't work. Sorry in advance, mom and pono. But hey, it will be interesting to see how long it takes for a letter to get from Martinique to Nouvelle Caledonie. I prayed before I put it in the box.

 

Oh, for the other picture-that is my left forearm. Duh.

 

That's all I've got for this week. Know that I love and pray for you often, and am always grateful to hear from you.

 

-Elder Santos

April 2, 2013

Poission d'Avril!!!

Bonjour chère famille!

I'm a little late this week to write, but for those of you who have already read Pono's email, she did a pretty good job of explaining how that works. Although, here we still had Easter on Sunday, but...we also have it on Monday. I think it has something to do with us using the metric system. Also, apparently I sounded pretty sad in my last email. Which, I mean, I wasn't suuper happy, but hey, life goes on. In any case, thank you all for your concern and your council, because it does help.

This week has been lots of fun. In fact, it's been pretty similar to last week, with the main difference being that I feel better about it. But! I still got to learn a couple new things. Let's talk easter! First of all happy easter to everyone! I hope you enjoyed the great american tradition of chocolate bunnies, because they got nothing of the sort here. Haha holidays in general for missionaries are...different. The best way I could sum it up is by quoting the missionary handbook, which says that "Holidays and sundays are great opportunities for finding people, because many families are together at home. Use these opportunities to the best of your ability..." or something like that. Basically, I celebrated Easter this year by going to Church (I got to sing in the branch choir! We sang "He is Risen" right out of the hymnbook. And that, not too terribly well), eating lunch at Sr. Jean-de-Dieu's house, and then knocking on a lot of doors. Fun fact-the missionary handbook was not written in Martinique. Or anywhere where people take siestes.

Then, on Monday, there is a great tradition here in which people celebrate Easter Monday by eating crab and rice. Fun fact for this week? Crab is so not worth the trouble. I mean, for those of you who haven't gotten the chance yet, they give you the whole thing still in its shell. So I get a plateful of crab, turn to Elder Johnston, and ask him "comment est-ce que ça se mange?" How do you eat this? Because I had no clue what to do with the stinking thing. His response? "Il faut écraser" We crush it. Hahah funnily enough, I spent the entire time thinking of the dinner scene in Shrek 2 when the dad crushes the crab and all the little pieces go everywhere. Turns out that was not a joke or an exaggeration. Before eating, each of the missionaries was given a towel to tie around our neck like a giant bib. Even that was only partially successful. But really. The meat was good, but it's kinda like the coconut thing. If you're going to put that much effort into getting at your food, it had better be the best thing you've ever tasted.

Oh, and the subject line-that is the name of "April Fool's Day" in french. I have no clue what that has to do with anything, but hey, I don't make the rules.

Fun fact, turns out the email place just closed. Guess that means I'm out of time.

I love you all!

-Elder Santos

March 25, 2013

Out of time...

So on one hand, thank you for everyone who emailed this week! I love hearing from each of you and am very grateful that you thought of me. That said, this email is going to be extrêmement court (yay for random french phrases).

Bonjour à tous,

This week has admittedly been slower than I would have liked. That said, it has been a great testimony-building experience.

One thing that really got punched home for me this week has been the fact that God answers our prayers, and that he is waiting to bless us. Last Friday was a pretty frustrating day. I was on an exchange with Elder Porterfield, and we were going all over the place, trying to, as PMG says, find someone who was willing to recieve us. We ended up actually making contact with six people who we had wanted to have lessons with that day, but each of them was able to talk to us for two minutes, but ultimately unable to see us for a lesson. Basically it was a lot of sweating, but very little measurable progress. That night I prayed out my frustration, telling my Heavenly Father what a rough day it had been, and asking for help. The response to that prayer didn't change the fact that the day had been so frustrating and fruitless, but it did change me. I recieved a peace which allowed me to get over it. To put my load on the Lord so that I could focus on the work for me. Don't get me wrong, it gave me the motivation to do the best to never have a day like that again. But for now, I am very grateful for the little miracle that testified to me that God cares about us on our bad days, too.

LITTLE THINGS: I don't know how many times music has been my little thing, but whatever it is, add one to the count. With Elder Shepherd, we've been doing a lot of singing at the door, in lessons, or wherever. My favorite part is that Elder Shepherd is able to hold the melody line while I sing something else (something that is more rare than you might thing here). That, in and of itself, is a little blessing for me, and for the chance to sing again, I am very grateful.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: For starters, I just want to say that I strongly encourage la lecture of D&C 6 to everyone. It's full of great council and motivation from a pretty good source. But I read and wanted to share this week verse 10. "Behold thou hast a gift, and blessed art thou because of thy gift. Remember it is sacred and cometh from above"

Pretty simple stuff, really. But it touched me in its application in the lives of each of us. As a missionary, this is important because it's really easy for us to ask ourselves why in the world we are here. What God expects of us, what is special about this place that wants Him want us to be here right now, or if we're just being dumped off here as a sort of placeholder. But regardless of your situation, know that you have a gift which comes from God. It is a blessing from above. Do not doubt that which God has given to you-use it to the best of your ability and God will do the rest. Your gift is sacred. You are sacred, and don't you ever forget it.

Sorry, that's really all you get this week. I'll be better next time!

The photo is me, my DMB, and his wife. Pono needs to teach me to be less asian, because my eyes disappeared.

Love you all!

Elder Santos

March 18, 2013

"The Lord is my Shepherd"

That subject isn't nearly as spiritual as it sounds. In fact, I guess it's just slightly sacreligious.

But Hey! How's everyone doing?

Me, I'm great. This has been another week of changes, but unlike last time, it's finished by settling back into something like a normal rhythm. Which is great for me, because it was super different during that in-between stage. Anyhow, Monday and Tuesday were "goodbye Elder Hansen" days, and then Wednesday was a transfer day for the whole mission. In the Morning we went to the airport to Elder Hansen off and grab my companion, and then we came back later in the day to get Elder Hansen's replacement.

MAIN CHARACHTERS:

ELDER SHEPHERD: That's where the title comes in. When we first got him, Elder Johnston started singing: "The Lord is my Shepherd, but you are not my Lord!". It was a short song. In any case, Elder Shepherd is similar to my last companion in that he is once again a blonde, blue eyed white american. But hey, he's not from Utah this time! In fact, he's from Auburn. We were sitting down trying to see if there were any long-lost connections, and we discovered that he knows the Hutchings family! Speaking of which, he said that he heard that Mallory was getting married. Can someone check up on that for me? Tell her I said "hi" too. But yeah, we have at least one link in common-His dad's basketball buddy's daughter is my good friend! But I digress...Elder Shepherd is my "mother" in missionary language, and I've learned quickly that different companions change the tone of the mission a bit. I mean we're still doing the same things; knocking doors, teaching lessons, trying our darndest to work with members and walking a whole lot, but the approach feels different. I already feel very lucky to be with Elder Shepherd; he's a great guy, he wants to work hard, and he's motivated by his love for the people.

ELDER PORTERFIELD: He replaced Elder Hansen as Johnston's new companion in Trinité. He's still a youngling in missionary sense; he's starting his fourth transfer right now. He's from California, and will be a great match with Elder Johnston, because they both just have fun wherever they go.

You would think we would be done with the Airport for a while, but the next day we had another Elder come into Martinique on his way to French Guianna; his name is Elder Harrison, he is a few days out of the MTC, and the best part-his teachers were Frere Grossin and Soeur Pace! For those of you who don't remember, those were my teachers. But yeah, I introduced myself and he said "oh, I've heard a lot about you!" to which, my immediate response was "uh oh!" Hah but the best part by far was what followed.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: As he looks around our appartment: "Oh yeah, I've seen your bed before!"

hahaha that was scary. But completely un-sketchy, as it turns out. My MTC teachers know what my blog website is, and apparantly they just showed him some of the pictures from there, including the one of my bed that I sent a while back. Good times.

Elder Harrison left a few hours later, and we really got back into the normal routine. One fun thing with Elder Shepherd is that he really wants to focus on working with and through the members. I didn't feel like we were ignoring that before, but I have figured out that we can definitely do more. When Elder Anderson was here, he said "build the church in a way that it would continue to grow even if missionaries were never to be there again". He also counciled us to, when we didn't know what else to do, talk about Jesus Christ, because, as he put it, other religions don't know him like we do.

But one fun experience for the week: we were porting one day, and happened to come across a man named Jean-Paul. He opens the door, he's not wearing a shirt, and his dreadlocks are reaching all the way to the floor. ...so after we got over the surprise, we started talking about our message, and he says that he knows who we are. He goes into the back room and comes back with a copy of "Le Christ Vivant", says that it's a "beautiful testimony", and he had signed his name at the bottom of the page next to those of the prophets and apostles as a form of agreement. We were impressed by that, kept going for a second, and then he leaves again and comes back with a Book of Mormon. Not the type of one that we hand out though-this one was much, much older. Like, chapter summaries at the back of the book old. Also, he had marked it all up and down. He told us that he had read it four or five times cover-to-cover, and then continued to from memory recount to us some of his favorite parts, in particular that of the Anti-Nephi-Lehis who would rather allow themselves to die than take up their weapons of war against their brethren. Basically, he knows the book pretty well. We got pretty excited at that point, and he invited us in to discuss for a while. We discovered quickly though that it wasn't just the Book of Mormon that he read a lot-he showed us several volumes from Ellen White, some other Christian writers I didn't even recognize; basically, lots of very thick books that had all been read several times. So, yeah. As golden as he sounds, we're really not sure what's going to happen with him. He also is someone who prefers to practice his spirituality on a personal level. When we asked him if he goes to church, his reply was "I am a church". Straightforward enough. I think that's one of the most fun parts of missionary work so far though, is just getting to meet those people who are way out on the edge of the bell curve.

But yeah. The work moves slowly forward. Hopefully in one of the next couple weeks you'll get some more baptism pictures; this time for Jérémie and Lorisa; 24 and 21, have been a couple for 7 years (but don't live together fortunately), and have been to church at least 10 times already. They're really great, and the members here are excited for them to be baptized soon.

That's all I've got for this time. I love you all! Happy belated Pi day!

-Elder Santos

March 11, 2013

I know what the fruit of the tree of life isn't...

Coconuts. But more on that later.

Hello beautiful people.

This week has been all sorts of interesting. Probably the most unusual part was the fact that I took a bunch of pictures. Which I would love to share with you, except I forgot my camera cord (sorry mom!). But hey, you should definitely maybe get some next time. Until then, I'll try describing the pictures I wanted to send, and you can use the powers of your imagination to fill in the blanks.

But as for this week-Monday and Tuesday were filled with good-byes for Elder Larsen. For his last p-day, he wanted to go down to a beach on the south end of the island called Diament, where they have a little memorial of a bunch of statues [picture of a bunch of statues] and a big rock out in the middle of the ocean [picture of me with Elder Larsen both looking dashing, and a big rock behind us in the middle of the ocean]. That night for FHE we went to the house of the relief society president with his family, where I got to drink coconut water for the first time. If you don't mind your water looking like backwash, it's really not too bad! Then, Tuesday, for his last day in the field, we did a split with the trinité elders so that I could go see some people we had planned rendez-vous with, and he could go say good-bye to some other investigators. We ended the night by having a house meeting with the branch president's part-member family. I'll have to tell you about la famille Occolier at some point, because they are crazy. But yeah, Elder Larsen gave away some ties (he had 30 by the time he left) and took some pictures [picture of a bunch of black people and two white missionaries. Quoi de neuf. What else is new?] and then turned in for the last time in Martinique. Wednesday we took him to the Airport at 8am, met his family, checked him in, and then said goodbye [picture of me and two other missionaries huddled around elder Larsen, who is wearing a suit for the second time in his mission]. He should actually be in Guadeloupe right now with his family.

Then we started the part of the week where as a group of three, we got to cover all of Martinique. Oh, and just to make things more fun, the Bennions (our senior missionary couple) came into town for a few days this past week, during which they wanted to check the state of our appartments. So we spent a good chunk of time getting ready for that, because apparently last time was a scarring experience for all parties involved. Oh, and for informational purposes, there is exactly one island in my mission which does not have a senior couple living on it-you guessed it, it's Martinique! So we only have them on site when they fly in, which really isn't that often. In fact, if something goes wrong, our emergency contact in Martinique is the district leader. Which, for the past six weeks, wasn't going to be a whole lot of help for me...But in any case, we continued cleaning and driving and teaching until Friday, when several things happened. First, I got my transfer call, which I will discuss in a second. But after that the Bennions arrived and checked the apartment in Trinité, which passed with flying colors. Then Elder Hansen said good-bye to some more people in the area, because we knew that after that we would be spending a lot of time in FdeF. Saturday, it was my apartment's turn to get inspected, and...it also went off without a hitch! I also learned how to take care of the "petty cash", which is the name of the funds used to pay for apartment maintenance and other odd-job expenses. Then, this morning, I had my first full-ride experience with coconuts.

Why are coconuts not the fruit of the tree of life? Because Lehi never would have gotten to it. For one thing, it's fourty feet in the air, and your sole means of getting it a little closer is by taking a fourty foot pole and whacking them until they fall. Which is not as simple as cartoons would have you believe. Then, once Lehi's gotten one of these elusive fruits, he will realize that it's impossible to get inside one, because he left his machete at the other end of the iron rod. But just for argument's sake, let's say he manages to get inside the thing. He'll find a good amount of the backwash water, but very little actual fruit. What he does find will be defined by its exceeding blandness and rubberyness.

So yeah. We started the day by going to the home of the Laquembé family-they are 73 and 70 years old, and have each been members for at least fourty years. For those of you who aren't fresh on history, that means that they were each baptized years before Spencer W. Kimball's 1978 declaration. But yeah, they've got a whole tropical garden growing in their back yard. One experience from this morning was especially touching-we had been out there with the big Coco tree, and the fourty-foot stick wasn't working too very well. So Soeur Laquembé whips out a machete and starts going at her coconut tree! We told her to stop, that we would get the coconuts down eventually without her having to kill her very old tree. Her response? "It's okay, the missionaries need coconuts!" A couple thoughts on that, which I will mostly save for later. But oh, I wish I had gotten a picture of this seventy-year old woman swinging a machete. I mean, that is just awsome.

But as for my transfer call...I am indeed going to be staying here in Fort-de-France. Back to being on foot and taking busses after this upcoming Wednesday. My next companion will be Elder Shepherd, from somewhere in Washington, though I forget where. He is coming straight from finishing training Elder Russell, who I knew in the MTC. And he will be the new District Leader, which means that I again will be with my emergency contact 24/7. But I got to meet him for a little bit during zone conference, and I'm excited to work with him now.

SPIRITUAL THOUGHT: This one is a little less scripture-based than usual. But I just want to share with you my testimony of the importance of gratitude. For the record, as a missionary, I have a lot of things to be grateful for, and I probably don't even realize what some of those are, let alone the ones that I know but am not as grateful for as I should be. Yes, there are people that will either mock me or hate me because of the tag that I wear, but on the other hand, there are people here who won't bat an eye at cutting down the coconut tree that they planted however many years ago and have watched grow for so long, just so three goofball kids can have some coconuts. I mean, one of them isn't even going to like coconuts! But he should probably learn to be more grateful in general. I have to say that the members here really are a special group. I think often of the story of Abish, the lamanite woman who held firm to her testimony through years of being in a place where no one lived the gospel. I hope we can all have that sort of faith-the type of faith that can survive and thrive on its own, when everything else around it is trying to tear it down.

THE LITTLE THINGS: This week, I am grateful for french bread. Or, as people here call it, bread. Well, technically they use the french word for bread. Which reminds me...

QUOTE OF THE (sort of) WEEK: "What is pain?" "French bread!" -apparently from "remember the titans", although I didn't know it until Elder Larsen told me about it. Also, if you don't know any french, just take my word for it that that's really funny stuff. (French word for bread= pain, pronounced "pa", a as in apple, but a nasal sound.

And that's all the time I got. One request for the week-if you feel inclined to mail me something, would you include a picture? I realized when I got down here that I don't really have any. I love you all very much! And congratulations to Nicole and Travis on the birth of the newest member of my family, Mason! Uncle Malu loves you!

-Elder Santos