June 20, 2011

This week was quite the adventure.  The whole zone had an awful week except for us who were in Trinidad, Kwatta who was sick for two days, and Nickerie, who just got opened up after being closed for a year.  We're going there next week for exchanges, I would suggest looking up some info about Nickerie.

Zone Leader training in Trinidad was wonderful. President Gamiette is an incredible teacher, he's so so talented.  He's also a very inspired mission president.  We'll be able to have a lot more interaction with him now with the new duties. 

Yes, it's lots of fun to travel. Trinidad accents are beautiful. They are a little bit softer than Calypso from Pirates of the Carribbean, but still great.

 

Wednesday June 15:

6am arise and work very hard the whole day.  Teach some good people and had a great time with Elders Guinn and Thompson.  Got home late, at 10.  Drove to Uitkijk to pick up Elder Van Meeteren who is now a Zone Leader in Guyana, and the two Elders he was with, Freeman and Lundgren.  Drive to Koewarisan, drop off the other two Elders and head back home with all of Elder Van Meeteren's stuff (yes that is a dutch name, but he's american). 

11:30, arrived home and began packing Elder Thompson's stuff.  We were all busy in one way or another trying to get ready for the trip.  Elder Van Meeteren realized he left his medication in Uitkijk, so they went to get that, which is about 75 minutes round trip.  At about 2am I fell asleep and woke up to our 3am alarm.  Got up and showered and put my clothes back on, then drove to the Jansen's with us all.  From the Jansen's we went to the airport, where our flight left at 6am. 

Arrived at 6:15 in Trinidad (time zone change - about an hour flight).

8:30 arrived at mission office where we were informed that we would be heading north to work until the conference that would begin at 6pm that evening.  Went and ate at Subway, and then went north.  (I had my first good experience at Subway too.  The Trinidad Subways are way better than American ones.)

6:15 we arrived at the conference late, and everyone gave the two Elders in charge a hard time.  Learned a lot until 9. 

9:30pm We went to the Elders' apartment and had to study some things for the next day, finally went to sleep at about 10pm. 

The next day, we began the conference again at 9:30am, finished at 5pm, and hopped on our plane to Suriname, got home at 1:30am, and we were up and getting ready for the day at 6:30.  Apparently, as Zone Leaders, sleep is optional. 

The whole experience was great.  President Gamiette taught us about how we can take weaknesses to the Lord to make them stronger Ether 12:27,37 and 2Corinthians 12:5-10.  It was good talking to a lot of these great missionaries.  Apparently, Elder Lake did come to fix me, but also to train me to be a zone leader.  Nobody knew about it though, not even him. 

Elder Guinn and I are glad to be working together again.  One tricky part will be that we both get very very sleepy when it's hot, and likely will have a few funny experiences falling asleep in lessons.  I don't think it'll stop the progression of people though.

We saw a moon bow the other day, I think Tuesday night.  The moon had a big rainbow around it.  It was way nice looking.  I took a picture, but it's awful.

I like this area a lot, and am glad to be here again.  Have fun in Powell. I'm a bit jealous honestly.  I love you all.

Elder Hulme

Sad Goodbye, Bright Future

After church, we had a zone conference with the mission president's first councilor.  Then drove everyone around until 6pm, then talked to people on the street for an hour, and then went and taught Tony, who missed church, but still could get baptized in the short future.  Me, Elders Lake, Baker, Guinn, Thompson, Norton and the new one, Pedersen all stayed in my first Suriname house, Topibolaan, where I will now be living.  I'll be working again in my first area.  
We went to bed at 1:30 Sunday night/Monday morning, woke at 3, then went to the airport.  Said goodbye to Elder Lake at 4, drove home and slept from 5-6:30.  Then drove people all over until now, 5pm, plus, I got a haircut.
Elder Lake went to Trinidad, and will stay there until Thursday, and be home Thursday night.  I am back together with Elder Guinn who has been in Munder for the past 4 months.  Elder Baker and Elder Badoni will take over Blauwgrond.  I'm really quite bummed to be leaving Blauwgrond and the people there.  I was really enjoying seeing them progress.  I just hope I can keep all the good habits that I begun with Elder Lake.  Hopefully drop the bad ones too.
This week we watched the long Joseph Smith movie with Zr Devredis.  It was an enjoyable spiritual experience.  If you haven't watched that, I'd recommend it.  We watched it at Zr. Salik's house.  They are friends and are hilarious together.  They are always joking in their funny guyanese/surinams English.  Zr Devredis is having a hard time adjusting from her Catholic culture to the LDS culture, but I think she'll make it after a bit of patience and help.  Lionel is making fantastic progress.  He never ceases to be strange, but he came to JOVO (young single adults), and to church, and stayed all 3 hours unlike last time.  He's very excited to finally get baptized.  Milton is still not married, and has absolutely horrible communication problems with his girlfriend, they don't seem to ever talk.  He came to church too, and had a good experience as far as I can tell.  Brother Parabirsing was doing some fantastic fellowshipping, which is unheard of in this country.  It's unfortunate that it seems everyone dislikes one another.  One thing that really stuck out to me about the JS movie, was how much the people were their own people.  How the whole point of the church was to help one another.  That seems to be missing here, and I don't really know how to fix it.  The families rarely sit together, and almost never is it 5 out of 5 if they do.  I'll be pondering how to teach this to people.  
I love you all so much.
-Elder Hulme

Why I Want to be Guyanese

Why I want to be Guyanese
First, an Elder Hulme report on Guyanese:
Guyana is all English speaking, but it's a very different English and is not understandable unless you are familiar with it.  The people there usually have a 1st grade reading level.  Thats the usual, there are indeed exceptions.  They love playing Cricket.  They are a very mixed race culture, from India, the Interior, and Creole.  
We were referred to this Guyanese woman by Elder Thompson, so we went to see her.  She's named Anita and has a very old house that is very well inhabited - something like 15 people live in this 4 bedroom home.  The front room has 2 couches and 5 beds just thrown in the middle of it.  It looks and smells like nothing has ever been cleaned.  There was the cutest little girl in the world there.  She had the shiniest eyes.  Anita was very glad to see us and was very accepting in hearing about Joseph Smith and stuff.  At the end of the lesson, they brought us some crackers and Coke which was very nice especially seeing how poor the situation is there.  We talked with Anita's 25 year old daughter who is currently 10 and a half months pregnant.  She has a massive belly, and is actually the mother of the cute little girl.  Anita was describing how her daughter would be going in for surgery to deliver the baby.   She described it so;  "They'll have to go in there and pull the ching."  Pull the ching is roughly translated as "remove the baby."  So we had Elder Baker say a closing prayer and pray that they ching pulling would go well and that the baby would be healthy.  After we left we decided that Pull the Ching would be a great name for a ska band.  And that is why I want to be Guyanese.
The other band name we've come up with comes from Elder Baker's favorite weather situation "Clouds Without Rain."
Lionel finally came to church!!! It was great and he loved it.  We went over to his house and were talking with him.  He stopped and got a deep look in his eyes and said "er zijn vele autos in deze buurt." (there are a lot of cars in this neighborhood) Then later as we discussed the Holy Ghost, he stopped mid sentence to mutter under his breath "Ik moet en goude ring met en witte steen vinden." (I must find a gold ring with a white stone) Upon reflection within the companionship, he's still way weird.  It's not that he's bad or anything, just incredibly strange.  But he bore his testimony about JOVO which is the young single adult program.  I liked hearing him talk about how much he liked it.  Zr Devredis however was not so cool and didn't show.  Hopefully everything is ok, we haven't seen her since Saturday.  Melton works from 7pm to 7am Saturday night/Sunday morning, we're still not sure what to do about that.  
We did find a new family to teach, family Tandool.  I'll keep you updated.  
I feel like I've been typing forever.  Bike wars is still good.  I think it would have been a lot of fun in Little Red Riding Hood.  We went into the city today.  Elder Lake needed some gifts for his home boys.  By home boys I mean family.  We then went to the Jansens for lunch and a final get together in honor of Elder Lake.  
I've lost my personality.  I've got some sort of mid-life crisis where I don't know who I am anymore.  So now I get to choose whom I will become.  It's a big choice.  Could I get everyone brainstorming ideas of what I could/should do when I get home, so that I can make a decision before winter so that I can get any university applications in before it is too late?  Please, thank you.  
I may not have a personality anymore, but I still love you.  
-Elder Hulme