7/11/11

4th of July with the Jansens was gezeleg. They put up all these American flags with Dutch flags next to them. There was one that looked like a tattoo that a man on a Harley would possess. Zr Jansen made us hamburgers, and really they were top 3 of the best hamburgers I've ever had, not very American at all though. They take good care of us, and I'll be eating there on Thursday for lunch :). It's nice being with the car, because they are always needing us to come over for one reason or another, so we have more interactions with them than normal. Their grandson is going to be here for the next 3 weeks. He's 16 and is doing what's called a mini mission. He's here working with a pair of elders for two weeks, then he'll spend a week with only the Jansens. It sounds like a pretty good gig for a well behave 16 year old. I think at that age for me, I wouldn't have enjoyed it very much.



Oh, If you ever see Ande's chocolates that are the crunchy toffee flavor, don't be fooled, they are awful, and cost 11SRD.

Pres. Gamiette flew in Wednesday night, and we picked him up Thursday morning for zone conference. Our portion was shortened down to 20 minutes because he wanted to talk more about planning, then it got shortened again to about 8 minutes. It was pretty easy, and we only covered one topic. Pres. Gamiette is brilliant, absolutely the best teacher I've ever encountered. He ended up teaching basically the whole experience. But the real treat came from my interview. One on One with him for about 45 minutes, it was super. I expressed concerns about how long it's been since I've baptized, and he said that if I begin teaching better, contacting better, and repenting more, "we'll see if you don't baptize" the whole experience gave me a lot of hope, and drive to do better. I never have enough time to study and ponder all the things that seem necessary to study and ponder.

We talked to Ruben Saturday. He explained how the Book of Mormon gave him nightmares, and how he believes that it is not of God but of man. He gave the book back and asked us not to return. This blew me away. I was so bummed. We now have 0 families to work with again. We've got to find a whole new teaching pool. We have one girl with a baptismal date for August 6th. I think she'll make it, she's best friends with Zuma, and we think they should get married. Zuma will put his papers in in a few weeks, I'm so happy for him. I was a bit bummed to learn that the only Suriname missionary now is Elder Hoepel, and he goes home the exact same time I do. He'd be returning to be in this branch too, we've only got one returned missionary in this branch, and that's Ritchi Bishesar, and he still needs to finish his mission. Ritchi is good though, his younger brother is also working on his papers, we just need to help him fill them out.
One of the areas, Wanica, is District leadered by my old companion Elder Bytendorp. I learned a lot of good things while working with Elder Bytendorp. It's his last transfer, then he goes home in the middle of August. I'll be eating lunch at Burger King with him in about 35 minutes.

It's interesting reading from the BoM and seeing how closely even missionaries, servants of God can follow the Nephi, Sam, or Laman and Lemuel pattern. There is:
Yes of course, I don't know how but I will do it.
Ok, I'll try
That's going to be hard.... I don't know... Whose Idea was this?



I try to never assume that I'm out of the range of being in these categories.

I used to sleep on my side or stomach. I hit the bed so hard now, that I lay down on my back to wait a little while to cool off before I get under my blanket, and wake up when the alarm goes off not having moved at all.
Thanks for all the birthday love
-Elder Hulme