April 27

Hey everybody! Amazing week! I feel like a very blessed missionary right now, the baptism service of 'R' went great. She was such an amazing investigator I don't even think I deserved her! She's so excited to be a member of the church and just got confirmed in our branch yesterday. She thanked us multiple times for helping her learn more about the gospel and changing her life around, she is in the process of going through a divorce with her husband and she told us that we came exactly when she needed help most. I don't think I'll ever forget her mother, a recent convert herself, come up to me crying saying "God bless you elder! God is going to bless you for baptizing my daughter!" Her mother had tried herself to get her to come to church but she never really showed much interest, it wasn't until we came, she told us, she began to get a desire to know these things for herself. And as if that isn't already enough, 'D,' our other investigator, asked me to baptize him this saturday! He isn't much farther behind 'R' in how prepared he was, I've grown to love both of them a lot and I'm so glad to see the steps they're taking to follow Christ. I know I was sent here specifically to meet these awesome people. This p-day I was finally able to get my ping pong set out and show everybody else what's up. It was pretty fun, we mostly just hung out at the church building with the other missionaries, speaking of whom a lot are leaving soon! The older group in front of us all leave at pretty much the same time, in late may I'm going to be in the group of oldest missionary's here!! A lot of things will probably get moved around next transfer, I'm almost certain i'll be moving, but that's not for 3 more weeks so I have a little more time here. In other news we've definitely hit the rainy season, it's rained 5 of the past 7 days which makes missionary work a true test of patience I won't lie. I hate getting soaked, especially in my nice clothes, but I survive and we make due, i'm truly amazed at how the tin roofs on a lot of these houses stay attached. I'm pretty much out of interesting things to say so I'll tell just tell you guys there was a big cereal sale today and I bought six boxes of honeycomb cereal so I'm pretty happy about that. Anyways pictures will soon follow and I'll hopefully be letting you all know how the baptism of 'D' went next week! Love and miss you guys!

Elder Carpenter

 

April 20

Hey everyone!! This week was great for me and for a multitude of reasons. I'll start you off with a progress report of our investigators, 'R' will almost certainly be baptized this saturday, and our investigator 'D' should be following her the Saturday after!! Things are definitely picking up in our area and I feel super blessed to have found and be working with such awesome people! These two investigators are definitely special to me and I really feel as if I've developed a strong bond with them while teaching. They were super prepared and I feel like they are very receptive to the spirit. Pictures of the first baptism should be following next week if all goes as planned! I also have a couple hilarious stories for you guys, hahah while visiting Sister Marlene's house, we were talking with Peterson, who's her son in law, and actually an american! When we came we saw a bike in the house, and upon asking about it peterson said "oh, didn't you guys hear? someone tried to rob the house last night, Eric (Marlene's son) totally scared him off with his gun, and chased him off down the street, and then totally stole the guy's bike!!" Hahahah we were laughing so hard, and Eric was so proud of it, he was like "It rides good! Rides good! You want ride?" hahaha so i went up and down the street a couple times on the stolen bike, it was hilarious. Story number two begins while teaching an investigator named 'm,' it was raining so we went behind his house where there's cover, it's a narrow alley, with a house to your left and a gate to the right. In the middle of teaching, a little kid comes up behind my chair, and upon turning around I see this guy's totally naked, I try to pay it no mind and keep teaching but as i do that, he starts climbing the gate to my left, and the higher he gets, the closer this little guy's butt is to my face, until eventually I just really can't handle it anymore and i lean my chair back, but upon doing so my chair breaks from under me! And I land in a big puddle, and the water spout where the rain was draining from just lands right in my face, hahah it was definitely one of those, "i'm sure i'll laugh later" moments, and so it is now. We played games at the church for p-day and the senior couple from guyana, the poulsons, totally got lunch for everybody! They're the best and we had a great time playing games with them. It was a great week and I'm super excited for the next one! I miss and love you guys a ton! And I hope you have an awesome week!

Elder Carpenter

The bike he took from the robber

Had to edit this one!!! hahaha

April 13

Hey everybody! Heartfelt greetings from out here in Suriname! This
week was fantastic!! I'll start with the best news, which is that just
last Thursday one of our investigators, 'R,' pulled us aside at
dinner and told us that she prayed and pondered the baptismal date we
gave her for the 25th, and decided it was a step she should take! Me
and Elder Orton could hardly believe our ears! We tell people every
day to ponder and pray but this is one of the first times I've seen
someone put it to the test with faith and a sincere desire. She's dead
set on her date now, and has already begun inviting family and
friends! (A great sign that it's actually going to go through) So me
and elder Orton are super excited about it. Also we got a sweet
referral from one of our less active members we've been working with
and he came to church last sunday! We have an appointment with him
tomorrow and so hopefully we can turn him into another progressing
investigator very soon! We have some awesome things coming along and
I'm excited that I'm here another transfer to follow up with a lot of
the seeds that we planted just the transfer before. Just the other day
we had a pretty funny experience while we were on a walk with one of
our really old members named sister Lucia, She's a little less active
but she's SUPER religious and is awesome, her problems just stem from
the fact she's a new convert so she's still getting used to a couple
things in the church. We were walking her dogs with her while teaching
a lesson and we noticed that there were a bunch of dying fish on the
side of the road whose puddles had dried up. A couple kids were
picking the fish up and tossing them into a nearby puddle where they
could live and when sister lucia saw she threw her hands up and
started shouting "God bless you boys!! God loves the animals just as
much as you!! You're doing a great work!!" hahaha it was pretty funny,
she's an awesome old lady. In other news I think I've finally got to
the point on my mission where I'm out of the loop in the
technology,socialmedia,music department. I've stopped recognizing most
of the songs cars play when they pass by and I still haven't held an
iphone 6 in my hands yet. I've decided it's not worth trying to keep
up with it all, I think it's easy to understand why a lot of old
people just give up, it's a lot simpler that way i'll be honest.
Anyways that's most everything for this week, everything's running
smooth here in Paramaribo and so hopefully that trend continues! Love
and miss you guys!
Elder Carpenter

Happy EASTER!

Hey everybody! Happy Easter and General Conference week! I hope you
all had a great time, my week was pretty fun and I had an awesome
week. First things first i'll let you guys know that I'll be staying
right here for this next transfer with elder Orton, we have a lot of
good people progressing so i'm glad for the opportunity to stay in the
area to work on helping these awesome people make more progress in the
gospel. As of right now we have 3 people with baptismal dates, what's
more important though is seeing who comes to church and keeps their
commitments with us, there are a couple who I think are really strong,
'O' and 'R.' Both come from part member families which is a
great and immediate support system for them. I'll keep you guys posted
with how theyre progressing. For April Fool's day this past week we
were at sister Salik's for our last appointment of the day and invited
the elders from north's area to come see her with us. Before they
came, I had an idea to ask sister salik to pretend that she converted
to Jehovah's witnesses so the other elders would freak out hahah. Her
immediate response was, "Elder! I would neverrrrrr become a jehovahs
wickedness!" hahah but after quite a bit of convincing she finally
agreed. She grabbed her copy of the JW bible (they try to give her
things all the time) and when the other elders came she broke the news
and it was hilarious. The other elders were pulling scriptures like
crazy trying to convince her hahah we let them off the hook before
they started bearing solemn testimony. It was hilarious we were all
dying laughing. I loved General Conference these past couple days as
well, I liked the obvious emphasis on Family and I think that's
something I can apply in my missionary work here. They could use
stronger families here seeing as a good part of them tend to be single
parents raising their kids. Either that or they're often just
unmarried which is very common here as well. In other news  two of my
favorite missionaries Elder Beckstrand and Pulsipher just went home!!
They were some of my favorite missionaries here and i'll miss them a
ton! Another interesting story from today is that the zone leaders
just asked us to pick up a couple packages, we got there and turns out
they had 6 packages! two of them were over thirty pounds. Me and elder
orton just beared it and somehow managed to bring all 6 of them back
to the apartment on our bikes hahah, pictures will follow. That's
about it but before I go this week I'd like to wish my dad happy
birthday!!! Thanks for everything you do Dad, You're the best!!
Love, Elder Carpenter