Frog in My Pants

Yes we’ll talk at Christmas.  I’m thinking that I’ll just call you like it’s worked before, that’s the least stressful way to do it, everyone who tries to have calls coming in from the states has connection issues.  When is church for you all?  I’ll be available all evening or midday.  I’m more Christmas spirited than I ever have been in my entire life.  I think it’s because they don’t have the awful Christmas music here, all they have is the church hymns, and those I like.  We will be cleaning the house today, car will be being repaired all week, and we’ve had a chore trying to find bicycles to use while the car is gone(My tan should come back this week, the car is awful for that. My skin changes color so fast!! From light to dark or dark to light, it takes just a few days).  For Christmas we’ll be having a potluck at the Jansens house where everyone has been asked to bring something that their family makes every year.  We’ll watch a movie together.  Sister Jansen wants to watch Ben Hur, I don’t know if I’ll be able to watch a 4 hour long movie.  The other options are the Testaments and The Ten Commandments.  Or that new Joseph Smith movie, I liked that one. 

Zaterdag was gek.  We started the day with studies, and I learned a lot.  The district President’s wife is in the hospital and we wanted to visit her. When we got there the security guards said that we have to come at visiting hours, which is garbage- we are allowed to come whenever because we’re from the church.  Anyway, as we were driving away ZR Jetty called us and said to come back.  She works as a nurse at the hospital and was able to break us in.  She was out there screaming at the security guards telling them that they don’t know the rules and that they were wrong for trying to stop us.  It was great.

But then I discovered something in my pants that was poking me, turns out it was a chunk of frog that had been through the wash, gross.  Then we went to the Aroemans to prepare for our lesson with Bro and Sis Wekker (getting married today, baptized Saturday).  While at the Aroemans they insisted that we eat, which was good because otherwise we wouldn’t have any lunch.  I found a nice scary worm thing in my drink, so I threw it in the trench.  When we were ready to go, Elder Fernandes asked to wash his hands from the curry chicken.  They took us to the back of the house where there is running water and turned the water on.  Zr handed us some soap in a tiny little  bottle,  I was so intrigued by the size of the bottle.  Turns out it was special girl soap.  Turned out to be a great lesson on tithing. Brother and Sister Wekker are progressing really well, and we should be able to help the daughter to repent and be baptized as well.  I love it.  

I love you all lots.

-Elder Hulme

New Camera, Transfers, Ear Drops, Night Flights

This week was absolutely nuts!
I don't have as many photos as you, but I did get this camera.  One is of me and Ravi, he works at brother Ibrahiem's clothing store.  They are both member families, Ravi is going to go on a mission soon.  Brother Ibrahim is working with institute.  That's a nice hat they have at the store.  I got a Samsung camera, it was a medium price one, and seems to be just what I need.  I got a new card because my old one is full anyway.   

Here's whats up this week.
Transfers came early because of elections in Guyana, so we called transfer calls Tuesday.  Elder Norton got called to work with Elder Sadler in his area, I took over Kwatta and senior zone leader with a new companion photo'd, Elder Fernandes.  He was working in Uitkijk.  He's really sad to leave his area but seems like he'll adjust just fine.  Elder Fernandes is from Brussels, Belgium.  His dad is from Portugal and his mom from somewhere else in Europe.  He was called french speaking, but hasn't a chance to speak french yet. He speaks French as his first language, Dutch as his school language, English as his church language and Portuguese as his house language.  He's 21 and always is listening to music.  I'm really glad for the call.
Transfers however aren't so easy, because Elder Guinn and Nielson and Pedersen all got called to exit Suriname, Elder Guinn will be in St. Martin.  I've never been so far from Elder Guinn, it's sad.  Friday night I had to drive around moving people, and then leave to take those 3 to the airport.  I slept about an hour, and then passed out when I got back for another 3.  Elder Warner and I then went out to work. (all this time I had a serious ear problem.  I damaged my ear canal because I thought something was stuck in it.  I had such excruciating pain that I couldn't sleep Thursday or Friday.)  Elder Warner and I had a great day together, he's a great friend, he likes all the good music and can do sweet things on a BMX bike, such as 360's and tailwhips and stuff.  We made it to the doctor as well. I got drops for the infection and drops for the pain.  Problem solved now.  That night however, we had Elder Freeman and Elder Fuendelidas flying in.  Elder Freeman was coming from Grenada, he's been there for 3 months, he really loved it and didn't want to come back it seems.  I would have slept in after picking them up, but we had to go to church, I was out at 2 AM driving people from the airport to their area.  Church was ok, but only Jerry came from our teaching pool, way bummed about that.  I taught a lesson in the Jovo class.  
Sunday night we had a District Presidency meeting that went way late, then we were up until 12 reporting numbers.  Woke up at 3 to take Elder Van Meteren to the airport so he can go see his mom.  His mission is over.  I found out at 12 that he had left his suit at the Koewarasan apartment.  We drove way out there at 3am, grabbed the suit and got him on the airplane.  Then I came home, and turned off my cell phone, alarm clock and anything else that could bother me, and slept.  

Being a missionary is nuts when the airlines only fly in the middle of the night.  

I woke up this morning at 9:30.  Did my laundry and studied, then went to the bank to get money for a camera and picked everyone up to go to the Salijos for late Thanksgiving.  We had some great turkey and potatoes and corn and ice cream.  I got a real strong desire to eat pumpkin pie while I was there, I don't think I'll be getting pumpkin pie any time soon.  I then bought the camera and came here.  I sure love you all.  I loved the pictures.  Sorry I missed it all.  

You asked about pizza.  Pizza here is done exactly like in the states.  If we get pizza, it's almost always from Pizza Hut, which is the best of all the places I've found.  Everyone here likes it, but it's really really expensive, so it's rarely eaten by the most of the country.  It's also not very available.  Mostly however, surinamers only love rice, they don't care much for bread or potato or pasta, just rice.  It's too bad because I really like the other ones too.  I love you  all lots!
-Elder Hulme

Zoo, Camera Broke, Retention, Wedding, Afro Jesus

Kwatta Monkey (English = Spider Monkey)

So I'm working in the area Kwatta, it's named after the Kwatta monkey.  It's going well, Jerry and Ingrid are getting baptized in December, and also married in December, the same week, but the wedding comes first.  


We went to the zoo today. I stood about 3 feet away from a lion, gave a high five to a wild boar, played on the swings, and went down a zipline.  The monkeys are still just like gangsters.  

I was studying Preach My Gospel, because that's what we do, and found an activity I've never done.  It is to ask you all to share an experience.  The question is "How have you been blessed by obeying a specific commandment (i.e. tithing prayer or sabbath or something)?"  I need the support from everyone!  Oh, I got a new pen today.  

I don't know what's up with my camera, but it's not working very well.  It always claims to have a lens error.  The lame part is that it didn't get dropped, or wet or anything, it just stopped working properly.  I may just purchase one here, they are about the same price I think.  I also know of a store that sells Canon.  Or I can try to locate someone to fix it... I'll likely do this next week unless you have any other plans.  

Elder Job, Elder Hulme upside down

The district Presidency seems to be really waking up.  They have committed themselves to help us with retention of recently baptized members.  Up until this point it's been the work only of the missionaries.  It's incredible to not feel like I'm working alone anymore.  We bought a new tie for our branch president to butter him up in hopes of teaching him how to delegate work better.  There was a missionary serving in Wanica when I got into Suriname 362 days ago.  He got married Thursday to someone he baptized while in Wanica.  We went to the wedding.  Two missionaries accidentally drank alcohol for the first time at the wedding.  They ordered a bunch of non-alcoholic Champaigneq but some of it wasn't non-alcoholic at all.  I came too late to be a part of that group.  We did see the groom give a nasty nasty kiss to his bride.  Elder Norton was disturbed by it for the entire evening.  


We've got an investigator named Tony.  He's the oldest investigator I've ever had coming in at 78 years old.  Well, actually my first investigator in Bama was over 80.... Anyway Tony blacks out some of his afro, and bleaches the other, putting a big white stripe on his head.  It's great, he's also got a painting of "The REAL last supper" his house.  Afro Jesus is great.  I took a member there, and he was so excited about it, he took a picture of it with his phone.  Tony may have memorized the restoration pamphlet we gave him.  He's read it many times, and understands the restoration really well.  I don't have a date picked out for him yet, but he'll be joining brother Jerry's family home evening tonight.  I hope to hear that he's read all the way through the Book of Mormon.  He should be our newest old single man in the branch soon.
Things are great.  I love missionary work, and I'm excited to hear your responses to the Preach My Gospel assignment.  
-Elder Hulme

Q: How are Jerry and Ingrid coming along? 
A: Jerry and Ingrid are doing really well, they decided to push their marriage date back a bit, which is fine, and will be wed and baptized in December.  They are really enjoying the church.


Q: Is medical care typically considered very poor in Suriname?
A: Yes.  I refuse to go to the doctor even if I'm dead.

Elder ?, Elder Norton, Elder Baker, Br. Jansen, Elder Bell, Elder Hulme

Q: Are the bananas tastier in Suriname than in the states, or is a banana a banana, whether it's fresh off the tree or not?
A: There are gross bananas here sometimes.  But if you find the good good ones, they are better than American bananas.  


Q: Do you find mangoes year-round or are there definite seasons for them in Suriname?  Do you usually purchase them or find a random tree?
A: Mangoes are seasonal, even usually you can get your hands on them for a higher price.  We bought about 25 last week, and are still working on eating them all, one by one as soon as they are ripe.  I also bought about 40 bananas today.  I hate running out.  I've replaced most junk food with fruit, and I think it's a good thing.  


Q: Do you speak often in church?
A: Not too much, we are trying to make the branches more independent of the missionaries.  This branch especially is excelling in that regard.  


Q: What is a typical Sunday for you?
A: Wake up and make phone calls after studying.  Study a bit more and go to the service.  I'm in either the investigator class or the YSA class.  Both are great.  Then we have priesthood, which is getting better.  Afterwords, we make lots and lots of appointments, eat some food either at a members house, the Jansen's, or home, and go preach the gospel until 8.  8PM we do weekly planning.  That lasts usually until about 10.  Then we take numbers for the whole zone, and fax them in.  That numbers part I've never completed before 11:30pm, and no that's not ok.  I'm still trying to find a way to follow that rule.  I think they give us way too much unnecessary stuff to report.  

Q: Tell us a little more about Elder Norton (interests, quirks, life plans).
A: Elder Norton often gets into this "zone" where he's deep in thought and it lasts all day.  I just learned last night that if he's like that, it's still ok to talk to him.  He's very dedicated to studying the scriptures and writing in his journal.  He plays bass guitar, and dances a lot.  He's very kind to everyone.  


Q: Are you still sweating all the time?
A: Yes of course.

Q: The internet says the long rainy season is April-July, and the short rainy season is December and January.  Does it rarely rain during the dry season, or does it still rain quite a bit?
A: The rainy seasons haven't been following their patterns for the last 2 or 3 years.  But when I was with Elder Job, it only rained 4 times, which is very very few.  Usually outside the rainy season, it rains at least a little bit every single day.  

BOY I enjoy hearing about bike rides and bike stores.  I also sometimes daydream about lefty, and how good a bike that is.
Congratulations Simon the Champion.  Millie, stay cool, don't worry about mistakes, I've been doing this missionary work thing for 1.5 years and I still make mistakes.  Mom's cool, Oli's cool
Much love.
-Elder Hulme

Spiderman Box, Better Fathers, Losing Legs

Elder Tullis

That box in the photos is used to transport important documents in the car.  We were at district meeting and I took photos of everyone holding it.  Steve O. inspired move. I've had many shirt fatalities this week.  3 down due to collars.  I resurrected one though, it had a coconut stain on it, but I washed it many many times and now you can't even see the stain. 


Breakfast is pretty much always disappointing.  I'll sometimes eat cereal with yoghurt or use a banana instead of a spoon.  Or bread with cheese, sometimes an egg too.  I ate leftover yellow rice this morning, and last week I ate leftover Bruine Bonen once.  I hope to find a ton of mangos today, that's my true desire.  I eat at least 3 bananas a day.  

Monday last week we went to the Van Tholl's house.  There we met with 6 active members who all live in the same area, we talked about how we could boost the amount of members in the neighborhood.  They came up with an idea of starting a class there, aimed at teaching the men to be better fathers.  It's a huge task.  But it'll be good, we start Saturday.  There is a beer here called Guinness.  They have a slogan, "after work is guinness time" that slogan has destroyed fatherhood in this country.  Many many men sit outside the supermarket all night drinking beer.  



We've got two progressing investigators right now.  They are Jerry and Ingrid.  We're helping them to get married and baptized.  This will take place over the next 40 days I think.  They were wanting to get married on January 3, because that's their daughters birthday, but then Ingrid had a vision last week where a man in white with her son came and told her to get baptized on another day.  She decided to do so and the whole branch seems to be excited to help them.  They are getting fellowshipped really well, and they are a legitimate family!  Jerry had an infection in his leg 3 years ago.  They removed it, but then left him sitting in his bed with an open wound for 5 days in the hospital.  They then had to amputate his left leg, so he has only a stub.  He seems to be handling it really well.  The same thing happened with a member 2 years ago.  He had an infection, so they removed part of his leg, but then realized it was the wrong leg, so now he has no legs.  This story ended kind of sad, but they are both well on their way to the Celestial kingdon.  Love you lots
-Elder Hulme

My Favorite Tool is Called a Chop

This is me with Brother Tjong a Jong, the day that we did service for him.  That tool is called a chop, I think it's my favorite tool, similar to a hoe but shorter handle and a very setback blade.

Next is me and Brother Conrad.  He's one of our best investigators right now.  He looks like a pirate, came to church, is loving the Book of Mormon. 

He's been a bus driver for like 50 years now, and used to work with Brother Tjongajong for a long long time.  We didn't know that until he came to church and they were talking, it was a good experience.  As he was leaving the church he was saying something to the effect  of how glad he was that God had lead him to this church.  He won't accept a baptismal date yet, I'm not sure why, but he knows we expect it.  I'm very glad for him, and excited to work even more with him.  Elder Scott who is coming home in 2 weeks took a picture with him, and made a pirate hook with his finger, it was pretty funny.  

The last is our new district!  we've got 3 trainers and 3 trainees now.  The one in the red is Elder Garcia, he's cool, from sugar house, and looks just like Tyler Otteson to me.  The other is Elder Sadler, from Illinois somewhere.  He seems good too, but I haven't had too much of a chance to talk with him.  The other three elders are Elder Tullis, training Elder Sadler, and I'm so stoked for him, I would love to have Elder Tullis as my trainer - he knows how to make missionary work fun.  Elder Fernandez, of Brussels Belgium is training Elder Garcia, the two spanish root name companionship.  Then there is Elder Job and I, loving the work in Wanica.  Elder Job has lots of interesting things.  He's from Groningen, he's got a girlfriend who is a convert of 2 years and will be getting her mission papers in sometime.  It's funny because he's super dark and she's super light, like way way way white skin.  Elder Job gets tons of mail, from tons of people, nearly every day.  He likes making pancakes in the morning.  He's been snowboarding before, but in an indoor artificial resort, it sounds kind of boring compared to real mountains.


We got together as a zone today, played some frisbee, played some soccer, basketball, everything.  Then went and spent 300SRD at Burger King.  I like the Angry Whopper.  I haven't had Javanese food in a long time...  I should get on that.  For the caramel corn, I just browned some butter, added some coffee cream and sugar and poured that on salted popcorn.  I'm so excited for conference, I love this time of year, even though this is my last conference.  It's so strange being on the downhill slope of missionary work, and seeing other elders packing up and going home.  

I gave a talk on Sunday.  I talked about scripture study.  I am trying to get the branch to learn the doctrines better, because it seems that the understanding level right now is very very simple, and not very converted.  I used the parts that talk about "ask and ye shall recieve, seek knock."  My favorite is in 2Nephi 32:3-5 with the question of, What happens if you do not understand the doctrine?  MMMMM I love restored truth.  Did you get my postcard?  and Elder Job's?

It's great hearing from you.  Thanks for all the support.  

-Elder Hulme

September 12, 2011

So, the first activity was something that Miranjo, the son of the Branch President, and the only active deacon said he wanted to organize.  We said okay and let him do it because he said he could get 16 of his friends there.  When it was done, he didn't have a single friend there.  We were able to get Joan's boy to come and we had a good time with them and all the women that were asked to bring food.  

This second activity was something Elder Job put together.  We invited Joan to teach us all how to make our own kites, and then fly them, snacks and things would be thereafter provided.  We invited lots and lots of people and turned out with 5 investigators there.  Joan and two of her sons, and then these two brothers we met on the street the week previous.  Also many more people from the branch showed up and we had a great time making kites, I can show you all how some day.  The picture is of Brother Meygoe rescuing his kite from the roof of the church.  And some people making kites, and the snacks.  We made a vital mistake with this activity, and didn't have any spiritual benefits integrated into it.  Hopefully we will do better about that in the future, it was good for me to experience it though, and realize if you don't take control and make the spiritual things happen, they simply don't happen.

 

Ricardo is doing really well.  I think that Daboetje lied though - I don't think he's been trying to read for a while, so we've made some plans to crack down on him and get him into the Book of Mormon.  It's incredible seeing his personality develop.  He's 33 years old, and hasn't had any sort of work for the last 10 years.  He spent some time in prison, and on the streets homeless.  All because he was not following the commandments, (surely he was never taught to follow them or what they are, but still) and now, he's working, learning Dutch, learning to read and preparing to receive the Aaronic priesthood.  It's so great being able to see the massive progression and improvement he's had in his life.  I love being witness to it.  

We started finding work in a new area this week too.  It's close to the church, and home, and just feels like the right place to be.  We have one street called Kroondijkstraat that we have 4 investigators on.  Also, Ricardo lives nearby and we hope to take him to visit some of the people with us, to get him used to doing missionary work.  I like this new place, it's very calm and quiet, and lots of kids playing around doing crazy stuff, chasing each other and all that good stuff.  Also there isn't other churches nearby teaching anti to all the people, that makes them far more receptive to our visits.  

I've been studying repentance like President Gamiette told me to.  I've begun repenting as much as possible, and as quickly as possible.  I've learned a lot about how the Holy Ghost can purify us of our sins, and how without the ordinances such as baptism and confirmation, you can't get cleaned from sin.  I read 3 Nephi 19 this morning, and it's incredible looking at the manner in which Jesus prays, and the things he says about the people in the land of Bountiful.  When I entered the MTC I think I had maybe 3 verses of scripture memorized. I've been working on that really really hard and I think I know about 200 verses now from the standard works.  I read each Ensign completely the month it comes out.  All you have to do is put it by the toilet - it's a perfect plan!  I love being a missionary.  

We made a discovery this week, after realizing how disappointed we have been due to the lack of berries here.  There is only one berry, and that's the podosiri berry, AKA Acai.  They are all over and way cheap.  The discovery is this: the flavors of all fruits can be found in Suriname.  I bought some green bananas, they never turn yellow.  These bananas contain the flavor of the blackberry, but in banana form.  We had some other ones too, called Zuiker Bacova, sugar banana, it hides within it's peel the flavor and tartness of an apple.  I tried this morning a new zuiker bacova, and it is in the essence of strawberry.  This is an incredible step for the science of mankind!  

Ik hou heel veel van jullie. 

-Elder Hulme