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