Nov 3

Hey everyone! Another successful week of surviving out here, but first
off happy halloween! I missed it terribly this year, they don't do
ANYTHING for it here so it was just a regular day, it is HOT out here
as well hahah I could really go for some snow right now I have no
doubt we're both envying each other a lot. I still dont have a good
bike, they havent caught the guy who stole our bike money hahah so
it's been a bit of a patience trial getting along with a broken bike,
but other than that I don't think I can really complain! These people
are so different from me, I'm such an obvious minority people just
stare at us. Less than 1% of Suriname is white! Despite these obvious
differences the people here are also a bit more relaxed and love to
just do and say whatever comes to their mind, its not offensive to
call someone fat here, we were asking for someone yesterday and a man said,

 "Oh yeah, the fat one, she lives downstairs." he didn't sense the slightest

 thing wrong about that. I guess theyre not huge about building
each others self esteem here hahah, another funny story that happened
this week was with an investigator we met on the street. We were
biking home and it was getting dark when a man called out to us,
sometimes we don't stop if it looks sketchy (this guy was the
sketchiest) but we felt like we should this time. His name was Herbie
and he wanted us to teach him a couple days later. A couple days went
by and we went to his address, at the gate was a man who we greeted
and said his name was herbie, and for the most part he really did look
like the herbie we met the other day, especially since it was dark, we
told him we were here for an appointment and he seemed like he
remembered and invited us in. Immediately he seemed different, he
seemed... a little slower... than the herbie we talked to before, we
taught a short lesson than decided it was probably best to leave, no
sooner had we gotten on our bikes when the Herbie WE KNEW came biking
from down the street yelling "Ik kom!!!" or I'm Coming!!
hahah turns out we had just taught an entire lesson to Herbie's
younger brother with special needs, and he didn't say a single thing the
whole time, hahahah so we ended up teaching the REAL herbie and it was
a great lesson! I thought that was a pretty funny experience. In other
exciting news I GOT TO PET A MONKEY! hahah it was someone's pet and
they let me play with it it was the cutest thing ive ever seen! they
have such a personality and love jumping and climbing on you it was
hilarious. The way they do everything just makes you smile it was
awesome, I cant wait to see more of them! I hear theyre pretty common.
When I pictured my mission, I never could have imagined what it's like
here, but the longer ive been here, I can definitely see why I was
called here. I think these are some of the best people on the planet,
and i've never seen a group of people better at fellowshipping,
especially when it comes to people in church, they've all been nothing
but nice to me and from what I can tell just everybody in general!
Although it has its own challenges, like heat and the fact people find
white people so strange here, I'm convinced im going to keep having
some great experiences. I know that this church is true no matter
where you go and our message is simple and easy to understand. These
people are not all educated and sometimes I try to over explain when what
they really need is a simple testimony. I'm grateful for this humbling
experience and for these awesome people. I miss you all and love you a
ton!

Elder Carpenter

 

this is a super old cemetary

 

cool graffiti

 

Elder Carpenter's new pet monkey ;)