feb 23

Hey everybody! we're headed into the last week of February and by the
time I e-mail next week I'll have already hit the 6 month mark out
here. We got transfer calls just a couple days ago and I found out I'm
getting transferred! But just barely, hahah. Turns out I'm going to
re-open an area in Paramaribo called Munder, which is right above my
old area and i'll still be going to the same church on sunday, me and
elder orton are going to open it together so all that really happened
was I left the trio I was in for a transfer and now it's just me and
him, I'll be bereft of my beloved trainer Elder Dom but I'm excited
for the opportunity to take the lead a little bit more and grow as a
missionary. I think my dutch has progressed well enough to the point I
won't have too many problems with the language barrier anymore and I
think helping elder Orton with the language will be the first thing on
my to do list when we get there. After being in Guyana a few months
right out of the MTC he has struggled a little bit with the language
but I'm planning to help him out and fix that this transfer. We made a
lot  of progress with a couple of our investigators this week, and had
4 investigators in sacrament meeting which was really awesome to see,
unfortunately I'm going to have to say goodbye to a lot of them soon!
But fortunately i'll still see them whenever they come to church so
hopefully they like me enough to go there and see me... All of
suriname came together today for a combined zone sports activity where
we played soccer, I've decided I really don't like soccer but it was
still fun to play it and see the other missionaries today. Other than
us elders in Paramaribo not much else changed with the transfers, the
old group only has two transfers left, so in 3 months my group will be
the oldest with just a couple exceptions since we got one or two
others between my group and the old one. In other news I totally have
two pet dogs sort of. When we get home at night i whistle and they
come running to the gate outside our apartment where I give them food
its pretty funny. And what's even funnier is that i totally named them
after my sisters Marley and Bailey, I am currently looking for another
part time pet to name Sydney so she doesn't feel left out, I see lots
of geckos so if I can catch one of those it has some potential.
Currently no idea what i'd feed it though... But anyways I'm looking
forward to being responsible for a new area and i'm a little anxious
to see how it all goes! Hopefully well! I love you guys and i'll let
you know how it is next week!
Elder Carpenter

Feb 16

Hey everybody!! What a crazy week I had, hahah but before I get to the
crazy stuff I'll mention a few things about some of our investigators,
'A' wasn't able to make it to church this sunday and we've begun to
have some concerns with her in that she is very poor, and we're
worried from the way she's been acting and the things she's said she
wants to just use the church to help her financial situation out,
unfortunately we're worried her conversion will hinge on how much the
church helps her which in suriname really isn't that much, and the law
of tithing wasn't well received either... but we're going to keep
working with her she's just having some setbacks we can hopefully work
on. My new favorite investigator is a thirteen year old named 'J,' I
met him on exchanges and played some soccer with him (he was impressed
with how long I could keep bouncing the ball on my feet) but I didn't
really try to contact him seeing as it was just him and his friends.
Then to my great surprise this kid I randomly met came to church on
Sunday! He asked to come in to get a drink of water and met some other
kids and stayed the whole time! He came again to church yesterday and
is super cool, I let him draw in my planner during sacrament meeting
and he's really good! Hahah we've begun to teach him and sometimes his
mother and he's been making great progress. In other news elder Orton
my companion was biking the other night and was in front of us aways
when this old surinamese guy passed him on his bike and started making
fun of him hahahah we were behind laughing so hard, also I GOT BIT BY
A HORSE TODAY! and i totally have a picture of it. We went to the
paramaribo zoo today and they had a horse hahaha because i guess thats
like super foreign for them or something and i stood next to it to get
a picture, right as the picture was being taken this guy just totally
took a bite at me! I won't lie i screamed pretty loud, but it was a
good time. I feel like they actually had a decent exhibit overall and
i liked the fact they had a lot less regulations with the animals than
normal zoo's hahah we were able to get superrrrr close to a lot of
them it was sweet. in other news its still flippin hot and its getting
on my nerves but other than that i'm having a marvelous time. Have a
great week everyone you'll hear from me again soon
Elder Carpenter

 They teach a Book of Mormon class on Sunday evenings

 "THE" horse :(

 Apparently didn't learn his lesson about getting close to animals. 

At least this one didn't bite. This time.

Baptism!

hey everybody! im glad to hear how well you guys are doing, it's been a great week for me so far! First and foremost I can talk about the baptism of 'I.J.H.A.H!' Hahah he had five names which made things a little complicated for us during the service but we managed. He's an awesome kid with a great testimony and i'm grateful for the chance i've had to teach him so far. He's eleven years old and him and his eighteen year old sister are now both members but their parents aren't yet. When I got here 'I's' sister was actually inactive but after meeting with and re-activating her she decided to serve a mini mission here in suriname and after she did that she was stellar and had a great improvement in her testimony. So much so that she started to bring her brother to church and we began to teach him. They've both been awesome and i'm super grateful for the chance I've had to be here and help them make these awesome decisions in their life. In other news I think we've found my first "golden investigator" her name is 'A.' Despite only meeting with her twice she's come to church two weeks in a row now and has been awesome! She's already accepted a baptismal date for the 21st later this month and although they sometimes don't go through I honestly think she is very solid so hopefully we'll have another baptism coming up soon! She's older, probably 60s, and is a friend with another older lady in the church who we had introduce us to her. Working through the members here in Paramaribo has been awesome and I think we've already seen a difference in our success because of it! I'm still having fun in my trio with elders dom, orton and I. We have a lot of debates about movies and video games and I still show them up in chess from time to time (all the time). Hahah in other news sister 'm,' our favorite member here in suriname had an allergic reaction to something a couple of days ago, which we were really sad to hear, she's been having a few health problems recently so we stopped by her house last night and I was able to give her a blessing which was an experience I was very grateful for. I've never been in a position to help so many people in so many different ways before and it really is an incredible experience. Whether it's helping someone make the right life decision, or just buying someone on the street something to eat that night I'm so grateful to be here and allow the Lord to work through me to help these people I know he loves so much. Before I end I'd like to wish my very young mother a happy birthday as well!!! Thank you so much for everything you do mom you're the best and I couldn't have made it this far without you!!

Love, Elder Carpenter

(And I didn't even TELL/Threaten him to call me 'young!!'  haha What a good boy!!)

 

5 months

Well, it finally happened, hahah I was riding on my bike Friday night
when a man (probably drunk) decided to take a swing at me! hahah
fortunately i ducked and he just knocked off my helmet but it was an
interesting time. He kind of ran away afterwards across the street,
fortunately for him I didn't think it was worth the effort to pursue.
It wouldn't have been worth the "what would Jesus do" lecture from my
mission president afterwards anyways hahah, in other news we have a
baptism coming up this week, 'I' and his sister have been to church
the entire last month and we just taught him all the lessons so if all
goes well the service will be this Saturday. Unfortunately 'A'
hasn't really been progressing this past week but we did just commit
another girl named 'ML' to baptism! She's been really awesome and
has potentially the strongest faith of the investigators i've met so
far, she always says things like "it just makes sense!" or, "why
hasn't anyone taught me this before??" hahah I think she's awesome and
we're working hard to hopefully get her to church next week, she has
school and work which keep her very busy so i hope she can find a way
to make time! 

In other news I had my first experience of really gross
food, a guyanese family gave us something called Chana, which was
basically garbanzo beans with a really weird sauce and crunchy
things... i simply could not eat the whole bowl, unfortunately
guyanese people get offended if you don't eat their food so i did the
only sensible thing in my situation, and threw it off the balcony into
the stream outside. Now what makes this story funny is that i totally
didn't see the fact they have a big white flag supporting a political
party hanging off the edge, and i accidentally nailed it, covering it
with nasty garbanzo beans. I'm not going to lie it was a stressful
lesson trying to keep her focused on us and not the splattered flag a
few feet to our left... I guess the lesson i'm trying to teach you
guys this week is that if you have to get rid of an easily offended
guyanese woman's garbanzo beans, make sure they don't have a white
flag in between you and the balcony you're trying to throw them off
of. 

We had a fun p-day today playing sports at one of the few
basketball courts here in suriname, we wanted to play soccer but our
field was temporarily being re-done. I was super bummed about the
super bowl as well! When i heard the seahawks lost it was definitely a
day ruiner. In a way i suppose I'm glad i missed it this year, that
would have been pretty difficult for me to watch </3 

Also we just had
a conference yesterday for the whole Caribbean, Elder Holland and
Packer from the quorum of the 12 spoke and gave some really cool
messages on family, and also holy places. Which include our home, our
church buildings, and of course temples. i think it was spot on what
this area needs and hopefully they took the message to heart. I'm
excited for the start of a new month and I hope you all have an
awesome February! I love you guys and miss you all a ton!
Elder Carpenter