Bon Dia!
We are doing good here in Aruba, just kind of glad to be in the country, haha! When we were coming through immigration on the way back from Curacao into Aruba, they wouldn't let us through without a return ticket out of the country, so they made us sit on some benches for about an hour or more until the Branch President came to the airport and bought us each a return ticket. Pretty crazy, but we are doing good!
Things are going good here, just a little bit of a whacky week. We had the funeral of President Buckley's mom. He is the branch president of the San Nicolas Branch. He asked us to help at the viewing and attend the funeral so we did that this week. One of the reasons he wanted to have us there was as a public presence for the Church. We actually even shook the hand of the Prime Minister of Aruba!
We were able to have the baptism for Daniel, and I had the privilege of doing it! It was pretty crazy, we went out into the water, and there were a lot of rocks in the sand the deeper that we went into the water, and so Daniel didn't want to go that deep because I guess there are little animals that sting you in the rocks. So, we had to stay shallow, and then, there wasn't enough water, so we had to do it kneeling down!! That's a first, and I learned that I guess you are supposed to kneel down after you say the prayer, but everything went great, and Daniel is going to be a great member of the church! We did it in the same place as the last three baptisms, it's a little spot of beach called Bushiri. It's a wonderful place. You asked when the renovation of the church building is supposed to be complete. They are hoping to have the it done by December so that they can have a celebration there with the General Authorities that are coming down to celebrate the Church's 25 years in Aruba.
To answer some of your questions, Elder Holt is doing great, and I hope to be his companion soon! District leader has a couple more responsibilities, but out here, mostly all it is is reporting numbers and doing district meeting. I'm doing good, it's just been a little tough with all of the errands that we've been having to run down here the last few weeks, so I'm hoping that they don't think I'm a slacker back in Santo Domingo.
Well, President Hernandez (new Mission President) and Elder Cornish's (of the Seventy) flight actually never showed up this weekend. I've never heard of that, but the plane just never showed up, haha, pretty crazy, so they couldn' make it, and now Elder Cornish has to go to Salt Lake for General Conference, so they will have to come sometime after that. But we're just glad that the Lord let's us wake up in paradise everyday, so we'll try to focus more on the blessing it is to be serving in Aruba than on the problem with flights down here, haha.
We went to the post office this morning, and the package still hasn't come, but it hopefully will this week, thanks so much for helping me out with that!
One interesting part of truth that I learned this week involves doubt. Doubt is not something that comes from Heavenly Father, and it is one of Satan's last and largest instruments that he uses. When he can't get us in any other way, then he throws doubt at us. But I came across a scripture that I remembered from the past in D and C 6:23, where the Lord tells someone to think back on the peace that He had given Him in the past, to think back on the moment that built up his testimony. It just shows me the importance of remembering our spiritual, testimony building experiences so that when Satan throws the doubt at us, we can go to those experiences, and remember that everything will be alright, that we are ok, and that we don't need to worry. It's something that I definitely need to work on. When doubt comes in whatever way that it may, feelings of inadequacy, second guessing our testimonies, whatever it may be, then we have to think back and remember that we really know, we really are ok, we just have to listen to Heavenly Father, and remember what He has already told us. Sorry, that didn't make as much sense as I would have liked, but I hope that I got my message across.
I love you all so much! I'm so grateful for all that you do for me and the examples you set for me!
Love, Elder DeSpain
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