2nd Week in Suriname

I didn't find out that I was going to Suriname until Wednesday at 7pm.  I landed in Trinidad on Monday, November 15, got to the bed and breakfast around 2am, slept until 8am.  Tuesday, went to Mission Leadership Training.  Went proselyting from 5 to 9 that evening, then back to the bed and breakfast for food and sleep.  Wednesday, we went to the 2nd part of leadership training, then we went to the embassy to get visas.   Then we had a little introduction to the mission, they gave us our own debit cards, then we hopped on a big Caribbean Airlines 757 jet at 10pm and took the 1.25 hour flight to Suriname.  We had met up with Elder Tullis on our layover in Miami and we flew and lived together until Suriname.  We have to leave Suriname every 3 months to get our visas renewed.

The food here is fantastic, when it's not me building the cakes.  I've got Nutella for snacks, tuna, rice, etc., that can somehow become meals.  There is a place called Roopram Roti that is completely delicious.  I got some pumpkin roti there, and it blew me away.  The vegetables are not good, but the fruit makes up for it.  It's mango season right now.  I just need to learn how to shop here.

(I believe this is where the elders live.  Photo stolen with no permission from Elder Bell's Mission Blog - I don't even know who that fellow is - VaLene)

Elders Bell, Baker, Guinn, and myself all live in a sweet house.  It has a kitchen downstairs, and everything else upstairs.  We've got the whole thing to ourselves.

Dutch is coming.  I can now understand some, but not all people.  And not everything they say-more just the theme of what they say.  The buggy part is that in English, I know how to ask questions that will get the person to think what I want them to think.  In Dutch, I can only ask simple questions.  I don't yet know how to put the right inflections or words in to make it more useful.

Lots of rain this week, but every day we see the sun.  In leadership training, I felt so out of place because everyone was so dark.  I am a lot darker now.

Keep riding bikes and just know that these bikes are so so much worse than Huffers.  They would be better off using recycled garbage bags for bearings, than the metal used.