Week 12, October 19, 2015

Area:  Green Bay, Wisconsin

Companion:  Elder Alldredge

Date:  October 19, 2015

Hi everyone,

  This week was a little slow for us not too much success but it was still a fun week. We went to the Packers stadium that was way fun I saw I lot of cool things there and took some sweet photos so I will send those along with this email. Well let me think of a funny story that happened or something cool hmm wow I am blanking on anything like I said this week was slow! Well I got to see my friends from the CCM which was really fun, man I am sorry this such a boring one but I have been learning a lot on how to become a better missionary my knowledge has grown so much! Well on to a spiritual note!

  I want to talk about this Verse in Alma 7:11 "And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people." Last week I gave the challenge to go more into depth about the sacrament and I hope you guys did it but this verse tells us part of the Atonement. Christ came and suffered pains of every kind so that we can have someone to turn to, the atonement doesn't only cover for your sins but for your feelings and trails. All we are asked to do to pray that's it pray can go such along way for us. Prayer can save a family prayer can save a boy from going home on his mission prayer can save someone's life. If you don't know if anyone is listening to your prayers or feel that God isn't listening to yours take my testimony that I know he is because if he hadn't I wouldn't be on my mission right now, l promise I am not doing this mission on my own strengthen it is only the strength of the Lord! Find your hope in something that something can be prayer! I love you all and I will keep you in my prayers!

Love Elder DeSantis 

Week 11, October 12, 2015

Area:  Green Bay, Wisconsin

Companion:  Elder Alldredge

Date:  October 12, 2015

Hey guys,

  This week was very good you know why? Because I had my first Baptism! Which was on the same day as my Mothers Birthday so October 10th was a great day! The Baptism went awesome we had so much support from the Branch they helped us so much with everything, but the kid we Baptized is named Enrique he is 14 and he was in a part member family. His mom is Baptized and his younger sister, it is so nice to know that we just made this family one step closer to being able to be with each other for eternity. We also baptized his younger brother who is 8 years old. After Enrique and his brother were baptized I went and talked to the Mother and she was just bawling and I asked her how she was feeling and she could only get out "Happy" Its so true this Gospel makes so many people happy! So that was an awesome experience for me and gave me so much more motivation to work harder and to find those people ready to hear from me. We have a lot of people who I think have very good potential in being baptized here soon, if everything went good we could have about 10 Baptisms in this transfer which is super crazy cause the rate of Baptisms in Wisconsin is about 1.6 baptisms a year for a missionary. So its time to start working hard. 

  Well I don't think I have any funny stories but I do have a cool story so here it is, this Sunday we had 5 investigators to church which is way hard to do, but anyways we hard two of our investigators named Nora and Nora Maria. Nora is Nora Marias mom but Nora Maria has Cancer in her throat -which is way sad- but it was Fast and Testimony meeting and 3 of the peoples testimonies were about cancer and how they were able to feel that everything was going to be ok because of the knowledge of the Gospel. But get this one of them had Throat Cancer also I was like holy cow this is crazy, it just shows that God is in our lives and will do everything he can to help one of his children return to him. So I thought that was super cool! But also Nora and her family just love me for some reason haha they just think I am cute cause I don't know Spanish very well but I still try and they are just like it man its so cute how he is trying to learn for us, its funny cause they say it in front of me and I have no idea. So after we leave I was like what were they saying and he was like lets just say they really love you! Also this week I went on exchanges which means you switch Companions for a day and so we switched with the Zone leaders but they are English Speaking so I went and was trying to teach white people and I say trying cause we weren't able to teach a single person because us whit people are so mean geez I wasn't used to being shut down every second and so rudely. They are so funny they will open the door and just be like "no no no no nope leave" so weird cause Hispanics are just so much cooler and nicer so I am so glad I am a Spanish Elder! But the Zone leader I switched with is super cool his name is Elder Merril we get a long so great and he is just a super nice guy! I hope many some how we could serve together, but him and his Companion both got Dear John so that sucks haha and the this that sucks about Elder Merril and his is that the girl is a sister of his Brothers wife so ya that's rough. 

My spiritual message is to just focus on the Sacrament and what it actually means and what we are doing each time we take it! I don't have much to say on it cause I want you guys to go deep into it like I have been recently its so cool. That's my challenge study the Sacrament, I know we all know what it represents but think of more then just that, I will help you with what I mean such as: Grace, Atonement, Resurrection and Pure Love 

You guys are amazing love you all! 

                                                 Love Elder DeSantis

Week 10 October 5, 2015

Area:  Green Bay, Wisconsin

Companion:  Elder Alldredge

Date:  October 5, 2015

Whats up everyone,

   Well another day in the books and another good week! Start off with I hope all of you watched conference cause man it was so good and you can have many of your questions answered from the words of the Apostles and the Prophet Thomas S. Monson. But man it truly broke heart watching Thomas S. Monson just give it his all at the end on Sundaymorning and could barely stand at the end ah man I thought he was going down for a second but it was still so good and so powerful. 

  Lets see anything cool or exciting um not this week but next week I have my first Baptism! So that's freaking Sweet! I will for sure send photos from that! Man it will be so exciting ah I cant wait! I think that's all from this week.

  Spiritual time well obviously I am going to be sharing about a talk that I liked and it comes from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf in the Priesthood session. It hit me strong cause it made me think about all of our investigators we have. One thing to know is that Hispanics are one of the hardest workers when it comes to their jobs, like they work all day everyday no joke. They also use this excuses for everything. Every time we ask them to read or pray they say they don't have time. In Uchtdorfs talk he talks about laziness and how laziness is from Satan. Even though these Hispanics are some the hardest workers for worldly things, when it comes to spiritual things they don't want to take five minutes out of there day. Now I don't say this to be racist at all because man I love all the Hispanics here and this spiritual laziness applies to all of us. We will work very hard to provide for our family and making sure we have the things we want and things for our kids but when it comes time to working for our family in heaven it all of a sudden becomes something that is too inconvenient. Well I have found that sometimes being someone who is LDS is inconvenient, some inconvenient things in the church is having to go to church for three hours instead of watching the game we want, going on a mission for two years, having to prepare talks lessons ect. These things take time out of our worldly time, but I can promise you that doing these spiritual things is going to be more worth it to you then anything you can do. I leave this invitation with you to take 5 minuets out of your day and read and pray and then just watch the things in your life change watch your life have much more peace and happiness. I am so grateful for this time I am able to give to the lord and learn what it feels like to have true and ever lasting happiness. I love all of you and I love this Gospel! Study the scriptures, ild your testimony and I promise you that you will feel your life become more easy. Cant wait to share with you more next week.

Love Elder DeSantis

The loot from Elder DeSantis' mama

Halloween care package from Elder DeSantis' mama  Inside...Pringles

Week 10 Letter to William from his mom

Dear Elder DeSantis,

Well it's another Monday and time really is flying by. You are already in your tenth week. I truly think of you every day! I am extremely thankful that are whole family is getting to go through this most unique and thrilling experience of you serving a mission. I know this is a sacrifice for you, that is not always easy, but I promise you it is ALWAYS forth it. There is no greater work that you could possible be doing right now. Your unselfishness is providing opportunities for Heavenly Fathers children to return to Him! We are all so proud of you William!!! We all love you so much! It is really sweet, your sisters always tell me the cute prayers that each of their children pray for you every day. Your mission has been so good for all of us here at home when we find ourself having a little crisis of faith. Your mission helps us to remember our commitment to the Gospel. So not only are you helping to convert new members in Wisconsin but you are helping to recommit your family in Salt Lake City. Did Lizzy send you the video of CoCo teaching? I will send it just in case she didn't. It is the cutest. Also the prayers she prays for you are so sweet, funny and cute! She prays that nobody will scratch you or hurt you everytime she prays. So I believe you will be very protected from physical harm! I bet you don't get scratched even once on your mission. At least not by a person!

I am assuming that you got to watch conference. I truly felt that for me this was the most powerful and amazing General Conference ever!!! I always love conference but for some reason this one was particularly special to me. Grandma, dad, and I got to go to the Saturday morning session. We were in our seats an hour early just visiting with each other and with people around us. Sitting next to us was a cute guy who was recently off his mission from Scotland and Ireland. He was still on his mission high and said it was the greatest experience of his life. Well as you can imagine the conference center was buzzing with noise of happy conversation when all of a sudden it got totally quiet and everybody stood to their feet. I stopped talking and stood up as well. Cute President Monson was being helped into the Conference Center. I was so overcome with emotion and could not hold back the tears!!! The Holy Ghost once again bore a powerful and undeniable witness to me that President Monson was indeed a Prophet of God. His feeble body was worn out with the weight of his many many years of serving the Lord full time as a Prophet, Seer, and Revelator! His physical body was feeble but his mind and spirit were as vibrant as ever! Sunday morning as we watch conference I was completely spellbound by the spirit and I received a witness that the three new apostle that were called to fill the vacancy in the quorum of the twelve, were truly Prophet, Seers, and Revelators! I was so overcome with the Spirit as they spoke!!! They are amazing men who are now Prophets and the will be fantastic! OH I LOVE THIS CHURCH AND I AM SO THANKFUL TO THE MISSIONARIES WHO TAUGHT US!!!! I will forever be in their debt!

School is going well, I can't believe that I am already half way through my last semester! I will be graduated before I know it!!! Pray for me that I will find a job that the Lord wants me to have. I am looking so forward to being able to take care of people physically, mentally, and spiritually and I know there is something that the Lord wants me to do. I just love health care. It makes me happy and I love it! Studying the human body always confirms to me watch an amazing Creator we have!!! The body is a miracle!

I want to share a little parable with you that was shared with me in Adair's ward a few Sundays back. *** Can you remember times when you weren't able to watch an important, critical, and exciting ballgame, whether it be soccer, football, or basketball? So because you were not able to watch it live, you recorded it so you could watch it later. You didn't listen to the radio or watch TV for fear of finding out the score and finding out whether your team won or lost. You told everyone around you, "Please don't tell me the score! I am recording the game and I want to watch it later!" You are just about to sit down to watch this critically important game when you overhear someone announce the score to the game and right then you know that your team won! You are frustrated that you found out the final score but you are also happy that your team won the game. Upset that you know the outcome you sit down to watch it anyway. You find that you cannot help but cheer for your team. You get audibly anger when there is a bad call!! You yell at the TV- "Hey ref, that was a horrible call!" Then you say to yourself, oh ya, but we won! Then later on your team gets scored on so now your team is losing. You yell and get upset and then you say to yourself, "Oh it's OK, because we won!" Then the best player on your team gets ejected from the game for a flagrant foul. You are so mad! You yell at your team member, "What in the heck are you doing? Now you have lost the game for us!" You are now panicked because you know that it will be very difficult to pull off a win with this team member out of the game. But then you remind yourself that your team still wins. You are once again relieved! Then another one of your best team member gets injured and has to be subbed out. OK, now its going to be really tough to win, oh wait, that's right, WE WIN! Then you are scored against and are losing and there is only a matter of minutes before the game is over. You feel yourself getting upset and feeling dejected and think to yourself, "Well, it's over now! We can't possibly pull off a win!" You give up, but then you happily remember and laugh to yourself, "Oh ya, we do pull off a win!" ***   Well, life is very much like this! Because of the Savior and what He did for each of us-WE WIN! We are promised that in the end, if we don't give up and if we remain true and faithful we will win the battle of life! We are assured that the grand prize, the best victory, will be ours. During this life of trial and testing we will be knocked down. We will get injured. We may even have to sit out for awhile because we gave into sin (flagrant foul), BUT we still will win the game because of the glorious gift of repentance! There will be times in our life when there are bad calls against us, it won't feel that this is fair! But we remind ourself that we still are going to win the game. There will be times when we want to just give-up and give-in and then we are reminded that it is worth the fight, so we put our cleats back on, pull on our GK gloves and get back out there. WE WILL WIN THIS GAME OF LIFE BECAUSE OF WHAT OUR SAVIOR DID FOR US!!! 

In Romans 8:28 we are told, "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." The scripture says ALL THINGS": sin, bad calls, unfair situations, flagrant fouls against us, sickness, injury, pain, suffering, joy, good works, righteousness, happiness....everything!!!! The key to this is repentance, sacrifice, hanging in there in tough times, enduring to the end, and enjoying and being grateful for the good times (there will be many good times!) There may be times when we don't win some small battles, but the important thing is we will win the war! We will win the war over evil!!! And all of this is possible because of Jesus Christ! I love Him will all my heart and I am continually being reconverted to this fact! He Lives! He is the Head of this, His Church! He has once again established His Gospel and His Priesthood power again to the earth! Joseph Smith was the Prophet of the restoration! President Monson is the Prophet today! Oh how grateful I am to know this! How grateful I am that my son, my only son, is serving this God I love. How grateful I am that my son is bringing others to Christ.

I love you William beyond words!!! You are an MVP in this game of life! Many will call your name blessed for what you will and are doing for them. Be patient son! The message and gospel of Jesus Christ will not be accept immediately most of the time. Don't give up! Have faith! Pray for your investigators! And most of all LOVE them with all your heart, might, mind, and strength! Some will turn their backs on you! They did that very thing to the Savior Himself! After Jesus was teaching the multitudes this happened:

           66 ¶From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.

           67 Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?

           68 Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.

           69 And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.      ~John 6:66-69

I love Peter's response!!! "Lord, to whom shall we go?"

It is true Elder DeSantis! You can do this! You "...can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth..." you! 

                                                                                                      Philippians 4:14

I LOVE YOU!

Week 9, September 28, 2015

Area:  Green Bay, Wisconsin

Companion:  Elder Alldredge

Date:  September 28, 2015

Hi guys,

  How is everyone I hope you are all doing good! Things have been good here in Green Bay the work on the East side of Green Bay is doing really well, the West side not too well right now. I am serving on the East side  and we have 6 baptisms scheduled this month 6! Now these are just some dates for our investigators so they aren't all for sure but if they all work out that would be soo cool! Sadly I don't have any photos this week sorry I always forget. But I will for sure get some of all the baptisms. 

  Fun fact about Hispanics they are so nice and always want to feed you so this Friday we had 4 dinners you know how hard that was to eat the last two man I was struggling. Also its kinda rude to tell them you don't want their food so ya we ate all of it I think I had about 15 tacos no joke but that was only from two of the dinners so ya. I cant complain though cause the Hmong Elders barely get fed once a week by someone. 

  Lets see what has happened funny or exciting oh ya geez I almost forgot about this. So we just got done with an amazing lesson with this family who we got committed to Baptism and we are walking down the street and we see all these kids on their bikes and then we see these two big ladies fighting and one had a big Kitchen knife. The kids ride over to us and say ya that lady is crazy this is like a weekly thing and I was like dang lets try and help but then the cops came and took care of it so its all good. But ya pretty weird but like it says in the bible "its better to dwell in the wilderness then with an angry women" not joking that is in the Bible haha some where in psmals or Proverbs I think. So ya that's that story but that's all now on to the spiritual thought.

  So as I have now found out every single Hispanic says they are Catholic even if they have never been to church they all say they are Catholic. This can become frustrating at times because they think they are ok if they just tell us they are Catholic. But yesterday we got to teach this man who shared an amazing story with us about how pray has helped him get through his wifes recent death, we sat down and taught him about the Plan of Salvation and he told us he is hard core Catholic and he actually is he, unlike the other ones who have never been to church he goes every Sunday and has a good testimony about Christ. We left knowing most likely he wont be baptized, but I thought to my self that's ok because he is living a life around Christ and that's why I am on this mission to get people to have Christ in their lives! Now we thought about the other Hispanics who don't actually practice their religion, how can we help these people see that our church is different then the Catholic church. I didn't realize all the stuff they believed and that some stuff is pretty similar to ours. So we realized we just have to show them charity, they cannot deny how much service we will do for them! Every time even if they don't want to hear from us we will ask how can we help what can we do to help? This is how we will show people that our church is different and obviously teach them about the differences we have but I need to show more charity. That's my message show charity to everyone I love you all!! Talk to you later.

Love Elder DeSantis