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!

Dec 7

Hello and greetings from Wanica! This coming week will be the last of
the transfer and saturday I'll find out what's happening to me! I've
only been here for one but we're thinking that things could
potentially be kind of crazy this transfer since we're expecting some
new people to come in, so who knows what will happen? :p I feel
completely over my Dengue Fever now so that's a big plus, I had one
more little episode of it this week, around thursday but to be honest
I hadn't really fully recovered before I started going out again and
so I took some more time to rest and now I definitely feel better.
It's actually turned into a little bit of an epidemic... I think that
there have been at least 5 missionaries who have gone down with it and
the recovery time for everyone seems to be about two weeks, needless
to say it's not pretty. But despite that I still had a great week, we
were still able to get some solid lessons in and my favorite was
probably with the 'D' Family, they have a son on a mini mission here
in Suriname and their testimonies have really started to grow. Sister
'D' and her husband aren't technically married yet but we had a
really cool lesson about families and how they can be together forever
and I think that we drove a little motivation into their hearts. Will
definitely let you know if there are updates! In other news one of our
missionaries, elder Bowen, underwent toe surgery today hahah so that
was pretty crazy, I was surprised they let him have an operation here
to begin with but now he's got a zombie toe for the next few days and
my heart goes out to him. Today for pday we just got done playing
soccer, and ultimate football and it was a blast. we have some cool
plans this week and quite a few appointments set up since everyone
misses us since i was sick. Hahah so we're looking forward to a great
week, I hope you all are having a great december so far and you'll
hear from me again next week!
Lobi, Elder Carpenter

Nov 30 sick part twee

Oh man what a crazy week, I guess I'll just try to start off on a

positive note and say that i've done it! I've successfully managed to

contract both of Suriname's indigenous jungle viruses. Denghue Fever

struck me pretty hard this week and I've had it since Wednesday

afternoon. The symptoms were flu like for the most part and left me

mostly too tired to leave my bed. Needless to say it was not the BEST

of weeks out here but I survived and I'm recovering quite well at this

point. Today's the first day that I haven't had a headache and so I'm

feeling substantially better. Luckily I got well enough just in time

to go on one of our cooler pday activities today, which was golf!

Hahah we went to Paramaribo's golf club with all the elders from south

zone and had a great time, It was definitely a good turnaround from

such a tough week. I played surprisingly well for not having held a

club in so long. I could still drive all right but the rest of my game

was out of the question. All of the missionaries there had a sweet

time though and the place was beautiful! That's pretty much all that

happened this week due to me being sick :( But fear not I think that

by tomorrow everything will be business as usual again, we had 3

investigators in church which was awesome! Some of them are

progressing really well and I'm hoping that we can put some of them on

date this week. Love you all and have a great week!

Especially my littlest sister Sydney who is turning 13!! Crazy!!

Elder Carpenter

Nov 23 Thanksgiving came early

Hello and happy thanksgiving! So great to hear from all of you and i'm

glad you're all doing so well. This week has definitely marked the

transition into our rainy season. Me and Elder Van Den Herik got

pretty soaked on a few occasions but it's all good. We had a couple

cool lessons this week, a group of priesthood holders went by one of

the less actives, brother 'A', in our area, and we asked if we

could come along. It was a little like a home teaching visit but with

a lot more people because he thought he needed help. The lesson

actually ended up going great and I could tell the visit from so many

members of the ward really touched him and he expressed a desire to

come back. Lo and behold we saw him in church this sunday for the

first time in forever! I was so glad to see the members in our area

working together like that it was a sight to behold. If members did

something like that every week I have no doubt we'd already have a

temple in this country. We are also involved in an ongoing service

project with our district mission leader to help rebuild his house! We

spent time on the roof this week and it was pretty freaky i'm not

going to lie! I'm learning a lot about construction though and house

building so i think it's pretty sweet. Last but not least we

celebrated thanksgiving at the 'S's' today! Every year this family

feeds the missionaries at thanksgiving even though they don't really

celebrate it here but it is the nicest thing of them to do and they

are always so nice to missionaries. Anyways that's about it from this

guy but I hope you all have a fantastic rest of your week!

Elder Carpenter

Nov 16 Meet Alex

Hey guys I don't have a ton of time this week and so i'm going to have
to keep it a little shorter but we had a really good week! One of our
investigators, M, was in church with her less active husband.
We're trying to help them get married so that they can be baptized and
I think we're beginning to make progress with them! Her husband is
actually a returned missionary, but he went a little astray and now
we're trying to help him get back on track. In other news, we met a
new less active named sister 'mal.' It was a funny visit and the
first thing she told us was that she stopped believing because no one
could explain why we have twelve cows in our baptismal fonts at the
temple... hahah we didn't focus on that though we just shared a
message about the book of mormon and told her we would study about the
oxen and give her a good answer next time. Hopefully we can put her
concerns to rest. Last but not least we saw a spider monkey up close!
I held hands with it and everything it was CRAZY. I'll send some
pictures in a second. But yeah I hope you're all doing awesome and
I'll see you all next week!
Elder Carpenter

Elder Carpenter's new friend Alex

Just chillin' with Alex. Like usual. 

South Zone Conference 

Nov 9

 Hey everyone! I can't believe the first week here in wanica went by so
fast! Me and Elder Van Den Herik have been having a pretty good time
blanking this new area. Luckily the sisters here before us were VERY
descriptive in their teaching records and so we were very thankful to
them for that! It's made our transition quite a bit easier. Other than
that things have been pretty laid back, I found out something cool, in
that our area actually goes all the way to Brazil! :O Hahah but we'd
never bike that far it would take literally all day and half of
tomorrow. The farthest south we ever go or would go is zanderij and
thats a couple hours on the bike so we would only go with VERY good
reason. In other news I'm soaked sitting here at the computer place
which I take as a solid sign that our rainy season is underway. Some
missionaries look forward to it but I just think they're crazy.
Getting drenched can be a pretty big downer some days if you're just
not in the mood for it. What was cool though this week was that I got
to know everyone in the ward really well by a giant service project we
did for a retirement home! It was for the International Day of
Service, not sure if that's sponsored by the church or suriname or
what but it was a great time and the project was definitely a success.
They were all super grateful, although I did witness an argument
between two really old people as one lady was telling me to rake the
garden while an old man said that he was planting flowers. Then the
old lady said he was lying and that he's too lazy to rake it himself
and I quietly slipped away as they continued to babble... I certainly
do love old people however they are super sweet and loved talking to
us. In other news tomorrow is zone conference! We are excited about
that and it should be a great time. I love and miss you all and hope
that you have a great week!

Elder Carpenter

He likes his new camera. The best one he has had. And he has had three!

The fun children of one of the families in their area. 

Elder Carpenter's new apartment and the "iron" he pumps nowadays. 

The International Day of Service in Suriname. 

Nov 2 first a puppy, now a kitten

Crazy news! We received our transfer calls a couple days ago, and I'm

moving again! I'll be headed out of Kwatta and head south into the

area Wanica South! Still an established and somewhat organized branch,

but it will be the smallest one I've served in so far at least. Wanica

South shares some borders with the jungle and is one of the furthest

south areas that we have and so I'm pretty excited to check it out.

The craziest thing though, is that I'll be serving AGAIN with Elder

Van Den Herik! Apparently we just can't get enough of each other. I'm

actually very excited though, me and Elder Van Den Herik had an

awesome transfer together a few months ago and I know we're going to

accomplish some great things in this new area together. Wanica south

was actually just turned into a sisters area a few months ago. But due

to a general feeling that the area was unsafe for the sisters there,

we are being sent instead! Missionaries have been there forever, but

ever since the sisters got sent in they had a couple things that made

them nervous about leaving them there, and so they turned my old area,

kwatta, into a new sister area! It's substantially safer and so they

thought it would be better suited for sisters. In other news, me and

Elder James had a cool experience yesterday while we were contacting.

We were driving looking for a place to park the car and the second we

got out to start talking to people, a lady from 3 streets down started

to wave and shout out to us, turns out she is a long time member who

really wanted to get back in contact with missionaries! We were so

excited and felt really blessed to have run into her the way we did.

We could have contacted or parked anywhere, but we were led to someone

who was specifically trying to find us and I know that we were led

there. Besides that we also had a stray kitten walk in our yard and he

may have imprinted on me because he didn't leave for like 3 days, but

he finally left a couple days ago I'm just hoping he's not dead... We

had a puppy given to us last week and a Kitten this week so at this

rate maybe I'll have pictures of a baby parrot or something next week

I have no clue what's going on. But anyways, have a great week and

I'll let you all know how Wanica is!

Elder Carpenter

His kitten

A cellphone company advertisement 

Most of the missionaries in suriname. All but 4 he thinks. (Elder James is hidden in the shadows under the canopy)