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

Jan 26

hey everyone sorry im late today! We had a really cool p-day activity at a place called Cola Creek, its a park of sorts here and there's a creek that's super dark, almost black, but still really clean water. It's kind of an open area where we just hang out and play games and it was a lot of fun! The unfortunate thing about it though was that I may have pulled something in my back.... when i was jumping something felt really weird and hurt a lot and i wasn't really able to walk. But it's slowly been getting progressively better so hopefully in the next day or two it's no problem. We were disappointed a little in this week in that only one of our investigators came to church, but we have a lot of people to teach right now and I feel like i'm really starting to get things down as a missionary and the best way to do things. I have no doubt im going through a lot of personal growth out here and im learning new things everyday. Going from someone who normally didn't like being super talkative to everyone i met and then being compelled to be a missionary to every person on the street has certainly been demanding, looking back to 5 months ago when I first started looks like a different person in a lot of ways. But I realize it's also good that i hold onto who i was, it's by being yourself i've found you connect best with the members. I've made some awesome friends here and I think it's awesome what the people are willing to do for their friends here. We have a baptismal date for February 7th scheduled with our investigator 'I,' all should go according to plan if his sister and him prove to continue to stay active. We have a couple other people potentially coming up who could progress further if they come to church so we'll have to wait and see until next week if they finally take that step! In other news I am 3-0 on surinamese kids trying to beat me in bike races. I hope you all have a great week i miss you guys

Elder Carpenter

Wolfpack Suriname style

Hoe gaat het iedereen its been a great week here in suriname and a lot
has happened! We picked up elder orton from a tiny airport thursday,
he flew in on a tiny single engine propeller plane and hardly knows
any dutch! But we've had a fun time and he's learning fast. It's nice
to finally not be the newest one or have the people look at you the
strangest when you're trying to learn dutch. We've already found great
success with him though! We met a new investigator named 'V,' she
was a referral from the pelswijks, one of the families in our branch.
V has A LOT of life problems at the moment, from her unfaithful
husband to the fact she's recently discovered she may have cancer at
only 38. We taught her a very powerful restoration lesson followed up
with a lesson about fasting a few days later. She responded very well
and we decided that we would fast with her together for what blessings
she needed in her life right now. We haven't met with her again yet
and she has obstacles to overcome but so far I feel like her life is
one of the one's i've been able to begin to make a big difference in,
and I hope that continues and she progresses. We also have a new
investigator named 'A,' we met her outside a house and invited her
to church, she said she would come and wanted us to come pick her up!
We were pretty shocked seeing as how getting people to come to church
is normally the hardest part of our job... so we have very high hopes
for 'A!' Lastly, we have 'I,' the little brother of one of our
just re-activated branch members, he's expressed a desire to be
baptized and so if we see that he and his sister stay active we plan
on teaching him soon! I don't know if it's a suriname thing or a
missionary thing but i have been super tired the last few days! I'm
convinced there's actually something about the atmosphere here that
contributes to laziness and tiredness. I couldn't count on both hands
how many times appointments have been rescheduled due to people giving
their hammocks priority over us. But it's whatever, we're making
progress with a lot of good people! And one of the less active
families we teach has been coming back to church! I was really excited
about that. we had another sister named sister ramlal who has been
re-activated as well! I'm really glad that i've been able to help
these people come back to church. I am extremely disappointed to hear
that i have to miss my favorite team go to the superbowl as well!! I
hope it's not sacreligious to say the seahawks will be in my thoughts
and prayers come super bowl sunday. I hope you all have another
awesome week!! I love you guys!!
Elder Carpenter

 Elder Carpenter's kitchen



 And Elder Orton makes three!



 Their favorite monkey



 Scary dog



 Random back yard

 

Giant casino in the middle of Paramaribo 

Transfer to.......just kidding. He's staying right where he is.

Hey guys! Another week come and gone, i'm still feeling great and had
an awesome week! I found out that i will be staying right where i am
with elder Dom for another transfer, the only difference being we get
a third companion! His name is elder Orton and he's been stuck in
Guyana with visa problems and is finally coming into suriname! We're a
little nervous about having 3 people and how that's going to work out
with everything but it will be nice to have someone new. I knew him in
the mtc for a few days and he seemed like a pretty cool kid, i'm sure
that everything will still be fine. In other news one of the people
that I helped our zone leaders find while we were on exchanges got
baptized this last week! We found him a few weeks ago and he was a
super prepared investigator, I was really excited for him when I found
out he was baptized a few days ago! We picked up a couple new
investigators just the other day as well, one of them is named 's'
and i didn't catch the name of the other but we were able to teach
them a great lesson and im excited to see how they progress! Our
investigators still have a hard time coming to church.. if there's one
thing im stressed about it's probably just that, i want them to
progress badly but its just much more difficult to get some of these
people to church than it should be, I hope they have a change of heart
soon. I found out that elder bowen, one of my favorite missionaries
here who came with me in my mtc group, is going to uitkijk! uitkijk is
known as probably the hardest place in the mission and its in the
middle of the jungle so he wont see us very often. I was disappointed
to hear it but he's determined to have an upbeat attitude about it
which i agree is for the best. He's very good at staying positive and
im sure the people down there are going to love him. Im glad im
staying in paramaribo south, we have some good people progressing they
just need a little more time and motivation which im praying will help
them progress and make the right choices! We gave 'r' another
lesson on the word of wisdom and showed him how much money he could
save if he stopped drinking and smoking, it was nearly 500 surinamese
dollars every week! he was super excited to stop after we showed him
that so im hoping that can be the extra motivation he needs in order
to stop. As usual thank you all for your continued love and support! I
can't believe i'm already on my 4th transfer in my mission! I miss you
guys and can't wait to hear from you all next week!
Love, Elder Carpenter

 A set of French Guiana Elders stayed with them for Zone Conference

 They play on these fields and courts on p-day sometimes.

One of Elder Carpenter's favorite sisters in the branch.  He says she is hilarious! :)

2015!!!

hey everyone! 

sorry i missed you on monday our p-day was pushed back a

day due to zone conference! There was a lot that happened, i'll start

with new year's, one of our favorite members, sister 'm,' invited

us over. Her house is very nice for suriname and has two floors and

and extension that leads to a balcony on the roof, so we climbed up

there to watch fireworks on new years, because that's the big day for

them here. From there i could see all of the fireworks in suriname

going off at one time! it was one of the coolest things ive ever seen,

and definitely topped the list of new year's eve celebrations. The

only downside was... 

*breath for dramatic pause*... 

I have

chikungunya. i've had it since last Monday on p-day, but the good news

is you don't have to worry because i'm already better! it only lasted

about 3 or 4 days, i was stuck inside with a high fever and some joint

pain, it was really annoying to have but at least i've gone through

it. I was feeling a little sick new year's eve but really didn't want

to miss all of the fireworks, fortunately i felt good enough and had a

great time! Later that week we had another contacting activity in the

city with president and sister mehr there with us! It went really well

and i drew the plan of salvation at every station to help people have

a visual to look at so that was pretty cool. Zone Conference was just

yesterday and we had some cool lessons, mostly focused on working with

members, so that's something we're going to put a renewed focus on. We

played basketball today with the assistants and other elders from

french guyana who come to have zone conference with us, and so having

some new people for a little while was pretty cool, something else

funny is that i've begun to start a chess fad here in suriname.

Because i was sick i played elder dom in a lot of chess, hahah and

after beating him i began to play the other missionaries and thanks in

part to my chikungunya giving me time to practice i have finally been

able to declare myself the best chess player here in suriname. which only i

am very excited about. Anyways im very excited to enter the new year 

with renewed vigor in order to see success! My dutch is becoming

better and better which ill need if me and elder dom get separated

next transfer! i don't know if it will happen but we'll probably find

out this week if we're staying or moving. I hope all of you had a

great new year and don't think im apostate for e-mailing on tuesday. i

had permission.so its cool.

 Love, Elder Carpenter