Dec 14 staying put

Re:

Hey guys, some good news, i found out that I'll be staying another

transfer here in Wanica South with Elder Van Den Herik! We're excited

to stay companions since we get along really well, I've made some

really cool friends with a lot of the members and so I'm glad I get to

spend more time with them. A couple of them are returned missionaries

or about to become missionaries who we work with and so they are super

helpful with coming out to teach with us. Some other interesting news,

Suriname will be getting 4 new missionaries next transfer! 3 elders

and 1 sister. Most of them aren't technically new, in fact I think

they just finished their training already, but due to visa problems

we've only just been able to get them in this transfer. They should be

coming in wednesday morning and so I'm excited about that! We had a

district activity last night where all of suriname got together to

watch the Christmas devotional the church puts on and that was pretty

cool. Normally they have a tv in the back where there isn't a

translation so missionaries can watch in english but it wasn't working

yesterday so everybody had to watch it in dutch which people were

complaining about, hahah. The dutch speakers they choose sound so

weird, they all have extremely nasally accents its ridiculous. But

despite that I really enjoyed it and it was kind of the first time it

hit me that christmas is here! Nothing down here has even much of a

semblance of christmas time and so most of the christmas you

experience is what you bring with you, hahah. But last night, it felt

nice to feel like it was so close. Me and Elder Van Den Herik have

some good goals set for this transfer that we're excited about, and

I'm looking forward to building on the work we've started in this

area. Love you guys a ton and I hope you all have a great week and a

great Christmas season!

Elder Carpenter

P.S. Happy Birthday Marley!