March 25, 2013

stress-- it's a killer

Ma chère famille,

Ne vous inquiétez pas.Don't worry I'm doing good. I just felt like quoting Anastasia. And this week was good. But rough. I found like three gray hairs this week, and Soeur Lamb's having some stress issues too. But we're hanging in there.

This week in Sixième was hard. We had quite a few rendez-vous appointments actually scheduled. Like 4 ish every day, but only 2 of them for the entire week ended up not falling through. Even our service project with a member fell through on Saturday. So, it was kind of just an emotional roller coaster of a week. But, I learned a lot. About this work, about the Savior, about myself, etc. And I think I said the most sincere prayer of my life on Saturday night. I was so sad, and I felt alone, and I didn't know if I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, I felt like we were just walking around sometimes and sometimes it felt just uninspired. So I hung in there pretty good til Saturday late afternoon/early evening, and then I started to cry. Consequently, Soeur Lamb had cried twice earlier that day. hah. And that's usually how that happens, especially with the two of us. An earthquake and then the after shocks... But it was good. We actually headed home a little early Saturday night because we taught the lesson for l'ecole de dimanche Sunday School Sunday, so we did that, finished our language study, and then Soeur Lamb was nice and made dinner and I went in the room and said a prayer. An English prayer. Which I never do. I asked Him if He was pleased with the work that Soeur Lamb and I were doing. I also asked Him what I could do to become a more effective servant in doing this work. And I got part of my answer during the prayer and part of my answer the next day at church. Soeur Lamb and I are being obedient and working hard. So Heavenly Father is pleased with that. I felt that during my prayer. I felt lighter and a merciful calm come over me. And the next day, at church, I felt that I should continue doing what I was doing, but that also, I needed to change. I need to have more faith. I need to become more like Him, actively try and plead with the Lord, chaque jour each day  to really change and become. Because I can't go out and try and find and teach people about faith in Jesus Christ if I don't have the faith that we can find someone to talk to about this gospel. 

But! I am doing great. Really, I am. And I know that Heavenly Father is there and that He answers prayers. Because He loves us and wants us to be happy. If there is anything I have a testimony of, it is that. The the premier principe of leçon 1 the first principle of lesson 1. God is our loving Heavenly Father and He loves us. It's true! I know it is. 

And Kalei and Elaine!! Congrats on your engagement!! I am sooo happy for you! I cried tears of joy when I read your email! And it was the first one I read today cause it was at the top!! I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ blesses families and that is why I am so happy that you are going to get married, because I know that many blessings will follow after that. And I know how much you love eachother! Oh I'm so happy. Félicitations vous deux! Je vous aime! Congratulations to you both!  I love you!

Tender mercies. So many this week. Despite the fact that almost every rendez-vous tombé-d dans l'eau. ...almost every appointment fell in the water (literal translation)- in English we would say, "was flushed down the toilet"; i.e. was for naught...you get the point. (Also, on a side note, this, gentle folk, is franglais at its finest-  French vocabulary with English grammar. That sister of mine is QUITE adept at it!) But seriously. I don't quite know how I can explain how much Heavenly Father loves and takes care for His missionaries. Bags of fruit from random people we talk to when we try and offer service, a bottle of citronade lemonade when doing porte a porte.door-to-door 6 peaches just given to us across the counter of a little alimentation (grocery)  store, rides home from the grocery store. Groceries bought and given to us. Trop de bénédictions!! Je ne peux même pas expliquer.So many blessings!!  I can't even explain. Heavenly Father loves me. And I know He loves you all too! I pray for you everyday, but really, I've given you too the Lord, because I need to concecrate all of my time and thoughts and efforts to this work and the people that are here. But I know that He is taking care of you. And I'm grateful for that connaissance. knowledge.

Happy birthday Travis! Your card's in the mail. Also, I've been getting a crazy amount of letters! Thank you all! In the past week I've gotten like 5. Thank you Sister Larsen Elder Woodward, Sister Osorio, Dan, and Hermana Glauser. I'm getting back to all of you, but I'm a bit behind. Désolée... Sorry...But!! Elder Woodward's in Halifax CANADA and he has his cello cause his president called him and was like, hey you play cello, and the next week it was being driven up by a senior couple driving up to Halifax. I may or may not be slightly jel... hah. So if you know of any missionaries driving out to New Cal... hah. Je blague. (literally, "I joke"...aka "j/k")  

Anyways, I love you family! Thank you for your continual prayers!! They are much felt on this side of the pacific. Sachez que vous etes dans mes prieres comme d'hab. Je vous aime tous! Plus que je peux dire!! Bonne semaine! Know that you are in my prayers as usual.  I love you all!  More than I can say!  Have a good week!

L'evangile est vrai!

Love, Soeur Santos

March 18, 2013

Ma chère famille, 

I'm here!!! In Sixième and I'm with Soeur Lamb and it's great!! Well, actually, I'm technically in Rivière Salée now cause that's where our internet place is, but yah. Speaking of which, that's miracle number one of the week. The place we do internet now is free. Well, we had to pay 1000 francs to subscribe to this place, but after that it's free. The thing is, I had been spending that once a week for email, soooo, HUGE bénédiction blessing. Thank you Heavenly Father. Even if I'm only here for one transfer, that'll save me 5000 francs. And if I ever come back to Sixieme or Ducos this year I can still use it. So it's great. 

Anyways, that's not very important. But I'm à pied on foot now, and I've learned lots this week about being on foot. What to do, what not to do. First of all, I found out yesterday, cause Sundays are my make up day, every other day laisse tomber.let it drop/ forget it But, apparently, I will no longer be wearing eyeliner. Because I put it on before church, and we actually got a ride to and from church this week, cause we had to pick up food after, the members here are soooooo kind. I can't get over it. But, anyways, we had a lesson right after church, so after Ducos dropped us off with our food we took off booking it to our lesson, who lives a bit away. But, long story short, I looked like a soaking wet Yzme from the Emporer's New Groove by the time we got there. Soeur Lamb was very alarmed. And was motioning mid lesson for me to wipe off my face, didn't even come close to getting it all, cause I looked in a mirror when I got home. I'm sure between that and the fact that my fro is constantly bigger than my face was quite a site to see walking there and back. Also, I broke out the mole skin this week. I am still loving my chacos. They are miracles, like seriously, I'm considering advertising for them for missionaries when I get home, but being on your feet all day everyday will do that. I have one little blister, but my feet are in surprisingly good shape. Also, I will never whine about fasting again. We fasted Saturday Sunday and ohhh man. It has never been harder. It was the water factor... I could have kept going with the food after 24 hours, but I legit downed a liter of water in like 5 minutes when we broke our fast. Also, we chose Saturday afternoon to explore our sector and walk every road so that we knew where everything was. Looking back, not the brightest idea. Mais! Je suis toujours en vie.  But, I'm still alive!

But, other than that, I am loving it here. It feels like home. It was SOOO good to finally move in Wednesday afternoon. We met all the members this week, and we visited almost all the members that lived here in person, which was my goal, so I'm super stoked. Some of them just wanted to see us at church, so we just took some time to talk with them there. But yah! It's great! There are about 7 families that live in our area, so it's a good amount. We have our choice of people to choose from to take with us for lessons, now we just gotta get some lessons lined up! Working on it... But yes, I am thrilled to be here. And to be here with Soeur Lamb. We are working hard and being obedient. I know that we will see miracles. I'm so happy and blessed to be here, and it's hard to open a sector, but I know that we can do it with the Lord's help. This week has been lots of finding, but even more than that, just introducing ourselves to the people that live in this sector. The people here are not used to seeing missionaries walking around Sixième, so we've been trying to find people to teach for sure, but we've also just been knocking doors letting people know who we are and why we're here. We've been taking the Ammon approach-offering service to the people that live in this sector, and it has been a blessing. I love it here. The people and members are great, and I feel so blessed to be here.

And, leave it to Soeur Lamb and I to have the weirdest experiences here in like our first two days here. Goodness grach. Day one. We're looking for an inactive member, the ZL's showed us where she lives (cause one of them covered this area with 7ieme in the last year ish.) so we went there that very same afternoon to try and track her down, but apparently she moved. We did however get greeted by an older women, "Mami." And she's great. She invited us in and we talked a bit. Actually, she did most of the talking. But, she was talking in third person the entire time. I was confused at first, but then I got it. That was my first french third person narraration experience. hah. Also, she went to the back to get something right before we were about to leave, she comes back and sticks 5 mille (5 thousand)  down each of our shirts (the equivalent of 50 dollars.) So that was day number one here. We tried to give it back, but she wouldn't let us. Since this day, we've tried twice, but no luck so far. It's in la bible blanche (the white bible, aka the missionary handook) though that we can't let people give us money, so we're gonna try maybs one more time to give it back, but if not, we'll probs just give it to Elder Syphus. He'll know what to do. 

That was day one... And day two. We tried to find Victoria, an ancien ami,(former investigator) but she wasn't there, so we knocked her building. The first door we came to an older lady named Gabriella let us in. She's Catholic. I didn't know it until Soeur Lamb whispered something to me, but she was very drunk. Which came to light when she said that she thought it was September, and then May later on. But, that wasn't the best part. We were trying to set a day to come back, and we asked if we could have her number, but she didn't know where her phone was and she didn't know what her number was. So she began wondering the house picking up and unfolding every single piece of paper to see if her number was written on one of them. Apparently I made a face, because Soeur Lamb looked at me and completely lost it. Like tears were coming out of her eyes she was laughing so hard. And I joined her not to long after. It was bad. But it was too funny. We're going back this week. Hopefully she'll be a little more sober.

Well, I didn't get to everything, but time's up. Anyways, I love you family! Thank you so much for your love and support! I know that you are praying for me and I love and pray for you too! Vous êtes les meilleurs!  You're the best!

L'evangile est vrai!

Love, Soeur Santos

p.s. PICS. Next week. I'm sorry! I promise.

March 10, 2013

Ma chère famille,

I've been on a mission for 6 months tomorrow. KRAY KRAY. And I kinda don't wanna talk about it cause it makes me sad thinking about how fast this is going. So, I'm just gonna head down, pedal to the medal, work my can off with the time I have. Because this time is precious! It's a gift from God. So I am going to use it with sagesse.wisdom.

Anyways, good news!! My two very large suitcases are in the car, and I will be moving today!! But, a bit differently than originally planned... I'll be going to Ducos today. With Soeur Teahe (one of my first comps) and Soeur Lamb. Soeur Lamb and I will be staying there until Wednesday, when Soeur Bills (new American soeur comes.) I am assuming we'll just be working Ducos until Wednesday. My birthplace!! So that'll be fun, for a couple days. And then Wednesday, Soeur Lamb and I will finally move into our appartment! Which I'm pretty stoked about. And we'll start the work there. I needa find out where the members live in Sixieme, I think I actually know most of them that live there cause they are in the paroisse of Ducos, so that's nice, I just don't know where they live. So yah. that's the game plan. Week 1, half in Ducos in a trio, and then Sixieme for good! I'm soooo exciteddd. Also, just fun fact, my new district, the district of Rivière Salée will consist of 4 Elders and 4 Soeurs. Which is what I'm assuming a lot of districts will start looking like now with the age drop. Choc. (Shock. Or, "that's a shocker!")

This last week was good. My last week in Paita. I will miss it. When I did my first exchange there I was hoping that I'd get to serve there. So my unsaid prayer was answered times ten when I found out a couple weeks later that I'd be going there with Soeur Kailiponi (THE BEST!) And I'm so grateful for the time that I've had in this sector. It's fun to look back and see the progress we've made. And I'm not tooting my own horn at all, it's just that, if anything, I have a testimony of a few things. Firstly, exact obedience. EXACT. It's impossible in some aspects, but Soeur Kailiponi and I worked superr hard to try and be as obedient as possible. And I think it may be as close as I've gotten all mission, and now I'm gonna continue that with Soeur Lamb. Secondly, working sans cesse.without ceasing. Diligence, en gros in general. With these two things, I know that we can see miracles. That the Lord will use us as instruments in His hands to bring to pass this marvelous work among his people. And also, working with the members. We had to do some major regaining members confidence when I got transfered in. But! We were able to do it, by serving them and also by showing them we were here to work. And now they love us! And they want to work with us! And that will continue after I leave. I love this work!! I love seeing what can happen when we give ourselves to the Lord, heart, might, mind, and strength. It really is a miracle. Also, Paita has got to be the best fed sector in the mission. We ate, no joke, lunch and dinner almost everyday this week chez quelqu'un. at someone's home.

This week we were able to teach a couple families. Which was so great! This gospel is for families and it was wonderful to be able to teach Husband and wife and their little kids. Actually, family number one, Cedric and Terika, Cedric s'enfuir-edran off/ran away/took off  when we got there. hah. Not the first time it's happened. So we just taught Terika and the two girls. But it was good! We did a little activity and they learned that they had a Heavenly Father who loves them! Because they didn't know that. And, we also started teaching the soeur (literally means sister this time...not a Sister Missionary) of one of our inactive members too, with her husband. Manu and Vonda. Now we just gotta get them to church! 

We also did a lot of desherbing this week. Service projects. Which were good. My goal is to be tanner than pup at the end of the mission, which would have been a lot easier if he had gone to Russia or somewhere like that. But we'll see :] 

Anyways, that's about it for this week. I love this work! I'm STOKED for 6ieme. Pray for me please so I don't waste time. I know we will work hard, but I want to do the best work that we can do. Because time is so precious here.

I love you family! Glad that Nicole and Mason are doing good. Sachez que vous êtes dans mes prières! Et merci pour vos prières! Je vous aime! Know that you are in my prayers!  And thank you for your prayers! I love you! 

L’évangile est vrai! 

Love, Soeur Santos

March 3, 2013

patience is a virtue...

Malheureusement, Je n'ai aucune.Unfortunately, I don't have any. But, I'm working on it. I fasted for it yesterday and It's my Christ-like attribute for the week. So I'll let you know how it goes. Patience with others, but also patience with myself. It's so hard! But, like all things. It is fo sho do-able with the Lord's help. Ça je sais.That I know.

Ma chère famille!!My dear family!

Combien je vous aime!! Je vous remercie pour vos prières constantes! J’espère que vous savez que vous êtes dans les miennes aussi!How much I love you!  Thank you for your constant prayers!  I hope that you know that you are in mine as well!

This last week has been quite incredible. I am humbled and happy to be here in New Caledonia preaching la vérité a tout le monde!the truth to everyone/all the world!  Even though sometimes I wonder why He trusts me, a 21 year old girl that doesn't know a whole lot, to bring the word of God to His children. But then I remember that Heavenly Father works simply. He always has and He always will. When Jesus Christ was born on this earth, He was not born in a castle, but rather, in a stable, in a manger of hay. The King of Kings came to this earth so humblement humbly.. And it was the same with Joseph Smith, the prophet of this last dispensation. He was a mere 14 year old boy when he prayed a simple prayer of faith to know the truth for himself. And there are many other examples in the line of this gospel all the way down to me, Soeur Santos. A simple 21 year old servant of the Lord, who isn't the greatest teacher and who doesn't know much french, but who is here to serve the Lord. And what a wonderful and amazing experience! I am so happy to be here. And heureusement,fortunately this work does not depend on what I can do by myself. It depends on the Spirit. And being humble enough to trust and do what the Lord would have me do. Jacob 5:72. I only have it in french right now, so look it up, but basically, the Lord is working right next to me in this work! And how grateful I am for that fact. Because I know that I could not do it alone. But! I can do it. Because He is here with me. Working right alongside me. 

This week has been great in that we have been inspired to work with the members and we have started, REALLY started to do so. Oh p.s., I'm still in Paita. hah. I was supposed to have my bags in the car and be demenaging aujourd'hui,moving today, but change of plans, again. I'll be here for AT LEAST another week. Next week is transfer week though, so hopefully they'll get it all figured out by then. On verra.We'll see Anyways, we had ZTC this week. Zone training counsel. And it was ep! I loved it. We had two fantastic formations on 1. How we can better find people to teach, and 2. How we can fortify and work with the MEMBERS. Inspiration! I loved it. I took lots of notes and more than that, tried to put into practice the things I took notes on. So this week, we placed Livres. But not only with our amis. We also gave Livres(Livres de Mormon= Books of Mormon) to the members! To give to their amis. Our youth in our ward, who are the FUTURE mishs! And our Converti Recents! Armed and dangerous! It's great. And we're gonna start it in the ward. I think we gave 4 or 5 out to members this week, so we're gonna have them report back and just continue! This work is too big for JUST the mishs. So we're reaching outward! Pulling out the big guns! Ah it's so exciting! I can't explain. But en gros,(used contextually here, "in general") it's great. And I'm happy, and the work is seriously starting to roll forward here in Paita! Le meilleur! The best!

Funny story of the week... We were having a lesson with our ami, Aimée. And she's a bit older, but we were reading 1 Nephi 4, where Nephi is commanded to kill Laban, and we asked her something like, "So why do you think Nephi was commanded to kill Laban?" And she responded, "Cause he was drinking..." Bahah. And she was like dead serious too. I lost it. Someone had to kick me under the table I was laughing super hard. Yahhh, I'm still 5. But I'm working on that too. 

Other than that, there's a cross above Paita and we hiked up to that this week! It was great! You can see all of Paita from the top. There's also a cathedral in Paita that I want to go to, but my collegues (companions/fellow missionaries) think that's weird... So I dunno. We may not go. Also, I got a lei at church yesterday! Cause everyone thinks I'm leaving. hah. Awk. But it's ok. I know I'm supposed to be here til I leave. All in the Lord's timing. 

INVITATION: Ha. I wanted to be like Pup. But for this week! Something that has greatly improved my scripture study for this last week. I know people say this all the time, but had a pen in hand and a journal/paper by your side when you are studying your scriptures. It's amazing what the Spirit will whisper to you when you show Him that you want to learn. I write down questions and the answers will come sometimes before I'm even done with the study. It's INCREDIBLE. So do it! And lemme know how it goes. I am now a believer. Didn't used to be. But it's real! 

Anyways, I love you so much! Thank you for your prayers and penseesthoughts and all that you do for me! Sachez que vous etes dans mes prieres aussi! Je vous aime tellement! Know that you are in my prayers also!  I love you all so much!

L'evangile est vrai!

Love, Soeur Santos