Dec 8

Hey Americans, I'm still alive and hope youre all doing well! it's
been a good week and some cool things happened! I met the vice
president of suriname the other night! He came to our church to make a
public speech about health care, apparently theyre modeling their
health care system after what America has been doing, but it was
pretty cool to be able to see and meet him. The meeting itself was
boring but we got a couple contacts from other people who weren't
members who came to see him so it was cool, the highlight was probably
me drawing pictures for people. hahah the other elders figured out i
can draw so it's a pretty constant stream of people asking me to draw
various things for them, I don't mind though its pretty funny. What
else was cool was we went to a tailor this week and I got a pair of
custom pants made, thats one of the things missionaries do here
sometimes, you can choose a fabric and have him measure you and get a
brand new pair of pants for the equivalent of about 25 us dollars! So
its a pretty good deal, we have a couple new investigators, namely
e, m, and r. They've all received two lessons now and if
all goes as planned they should all be in church on this coming
sunday. (But with surinamers things rarely go as planned) hahah but
i'm holding out hope. We're trying to get our other investigators
M and S married, but its a slow process to get them motivated,
one thing about suriname is that almost NO ONE is married! So when we
teach couples and families that almost always seems to be a priority.
I've come to realize that this *slaps mosquito with dangerous jungle
virus* is a tough area to serve in sometimes! Many investigators are
very lazy, and to get someone to try to come to church is proving to
be a big challenge, but I know that there are people out there who
will be willing and I won't stop looking until I find them! Me and
Elder Dom are making an increased effort this week to get people to
church and put them on date so hopefully with our support we can help
some of these people make a lot of real progress this week! I hope
you're all having a great holiday season so far! It's been a
completely different experience for me to be out here during it but
i'm grateful for it nonetheless. Love you guys and talk to you next
week
Elder Carpenter

 There WILL be Christmas in Suriname this year!

 New pants!