4th of July

This last month is nothing but a blur.  This week has been lovely, we've been able to sleep in until 6:30am almost every day.  We went over to the Jansen's to double check all the stuff for the ability of the missionaries to stay in Suriname, and everything turned out fine.  I don't really know what happened, but the mean voice lawyer called me because I had sent an email to Pres. Ricks in the Mission Presidency, who forwarded my email to the lawyer.  They got everything worked out and we'll continue missionary efforts in Suriname. 

We'll be going to the Jansen's again today, to have a 4th of July celebration, because the BBQ at the Ambassador's house isn't going to go through.  We'll eat hamburgers and have rootbeer floats and have a grand time. 

I've got now a thing that allows me to drive here in Suriname, it's good.  Driving on the wrong side of the road is about as strange as riding a bike on the wrong side of the road.  After about two weeks it feels mostly normal.  The stranger part is that you have to stay abnormally close to the lines on the inside, because I'm not accustomed to having all the excess automobile hanging off the the left of me.  Normally it's off to the right.  But,  yeah, it all gets normal after a bit of practice. 

Pres. Gamiette is coming Thursday, which is good because we need help.  Everyone is struggling and seeing little to no success in the work.  This is a massive problem because we're supposed to begin baptizing weekly.  We didn't even get to see the people we needed to this week, they were simply too busy, or out of town, or not interested anyway, and didn't get anyone who needed to be there into the church.  So now, we have to wait another week before we can baptize anyone.  It just keeps getting pushed further and further away. 

Elder Hulme and Elder Freeman

We've been teaching a man named Ruben.  He's stubborn.  He's Christian, but refuses to go to church, saying that his home is holy enough so he doesn't need anything further.  He's been reading in the Book of Mormon though, and I think he's learning bit by bit.  He, his wife and a few of his 5 children would then all be baptized.  I've set two personal goals for the last 9 months of service as a full time missionary.  They are as follows

1. Baptize every week for 12 weeks straight

2. Baptize two families, Father Mother Children

These are incredibly lofty, but I think I can do it.  I think also, that this is what the Lord expects of me. 

As I said earlier, President Gamiette will be here Thursday, we are his drivers to everywhere he needs to go.  We'll be having a zone conference and the part that Elder Guinn and I are doing is on the Doctrine of Christ, which goes a lot into unity.  The point I think we want to make is that if we do everything that President Gamiette and the Prophets ask, we'll then produce what is expected of us.  I hope that this will impact the other missionaries like it has impacted me.  It's interesting that I'm striving to be micromanaged by God and his servants, I never thought I'd do that.

Love Elder Hulme

Hiace

Zone leaders don't have any keys, they are all held by the mission president, and we borrow them as necessary (for baptisms and things).  Leadership as a missionary isn't like a calling.  My calling is as an Elder.  But when someone is called into such a position, he is just given further responsibilities within the original calling.  In place of interviews, we do exchanges, or trade offs.  Where you switch companions for a day.  The whole event is ideally an interview/training situation.

just a photo borrowed from the web.

We drive a Toyata Hiace.  It's a big 10 passenger minivan.  Driving outside America is a treat, and something many many people should experience.

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

Bike Wars

Elder Lake or Elder Baker

It's been raining a ton.  Luckily we've been driving around all day so I'm nice and dry inside the cyber.  I fixed my bike, then Elder Lake's then Elder Bakers.  It was fun, and we've all got well working bikes now.  We played soccer this morning, I'm not a very good player, and it was super slippery, which made the whole experience muddy.  Now our house is muddy because we had 9 people getting ready for the day there.

Elder Hulme and either Elder Lake or Elder Baker (he didn't tell me!)

News from this week.  We got a new Elder in Suriname, who will be working in Kwatta with Elder Norton.  Elder Baker has joined up with Elder Lake and I.  It's been crazy.  The first day we were together, we taught 12 lessons.  A good day you usually teach 6, bad day is usually like 3 or 4.  But we got 12 on Friday.  Then we all relaxed a ton, and weren't able to match it since.  It's nice working with Elder Lake.  And it's nice working with Elder Baker.  But with the 3 of us, the amount of time spent messing around has increased drastically.  Study time is filled with more stories, and planning time is a disaster.  

In French Guiana to renew Visa (Photo copied from Elder Tullis' website) 

We've instituted a new game(it's not a game though, it's a way of life).  It's called bike wars.   The idea is that you make the other two people fall off their bikes.  There are two ways to get someone out.  1) get them to crash or put their foot down.  2) if they run into you or your bicycle.  You are allowed to hit each other with your shoulders.  You are allowed to run people into the river(I nearly got Elder Lake into a big nasty one, but then was merciful and didn't finish him).  You are allowed to double team.  The game (way of life) stops when cars are coming.  Nobody has crashed yet, we are anxiously awaiting that day.  Mom, you should implement bike wars into Little Red Riding hood.  

Downtown French Guiana (Photo copied from Elder Tullis' website)

We've got 3 good investigators.

Lionel, who is the oddest investigator I've ever had.

ZR Devredis who is still stubborn.

Melton, who is way cool, has a massive girlfriend and a little kid.  He's quiet and works security.  He's also an Indian (not of India but of South America) and thinks the Book of Mormon is wonderful, which it is.  We've got to explain how you need to use Saturday to get ready for Sunday with Melton and Lionel, because they both missed church yesterday.  

I've realized that teaching is so incredibly hard, and I'm not very good at it.  I sometimes think it would be better to just teach the lessons like the olden days, just so that my investigators would be taught well and stuff.  But instead, they receive my personal teaching which is always custom tailored to them but not as clear or powerful as it could be.  I'll be working on that a lot, and studying about it.  If you look at statistics, the written lessons bring far more convert baptisms. As Elder Holland explains, Preach My Gospel was designed to convert the missionaries.  So I use Preach My Gospel as much as I can, and do my best to allow myself to be converted.  My redeemer lives.  

-Elder Hulme

May 23, 2011

We've had a great week, lots of good things happened.  It rained every day, so we've been nice and wet.  I got your package! Thanks so much.  Those Trader joes powerberry dipped things are wonderful.  And gone already.  It was strange receiving a wedding invite to Joey's wedding! That's the first reception I'd ever really want to go to...  it's over now though.  I haven't seen Grandma's package yet. It's probably just sitting in Surpost for no reason - the people there are lazy. 

As far as me saying funny stuff in Dutch, I'm sure I do all the time.  This week I confused a man a lot.  I told him he had a nice looking poncho(I was soaked to the bone at the time. He explained how he got it from his work at the water purifying center near the city.  I misunderstood and heard that he sold them at his water place in the city.  I told him that we'd try to come by on Monday to pick 2 up, and walked away.  He stood there with a confused look on his face for a minute and then went back to fishing.  Elder Lake explained what it was that he had said.  Sometimes I forget to actually hear what people say, and I just assume I already know what they will say.

I fixed Elder Lake's bike this morning, we had to replace the entire bottom bracket and cranks.  Fixing bikes here isn't as fun as it is in a bike shop.  It takes tons more time because you never have the right tools or parts or anything.  After a little bit of bashing the bike with a hammer, I got it together and it works beautifully.  The problem is that I still need to overhaul my back hub and replace my grips.  I guess I'll have time tonight probably.  Elder Lake is great to live with, he likes cooking sometimes and makes tons when he does cook.  I feel bad though because with how much food he makes, I never need to make anything.  I try to make up the difference by making his bed or ironing his shirt and stuff.  It's so strange that three weeks from today his mission will be over.  He'll be boarding a plane to Trinidad, then to Miami, then to Fort Whatever Texas and then to SLC International.   This transfer is going by too fast. 

ZR Devredis is coming along great, yesterday she had to save some Portuguese people from getting thrown out of the country, so that was a bummer because she missed church, but she's progressing still.  We're going over there Wednesday with the Jansens to try and whoop her butt into shape even faster.  We're hoping to get two baptisms before Elder Lake leaves, so we'll see how it goes.  Lionel is sliding backwards, he was being rude on Saturday, and bailed out on the YSA activity and church.  Those three things combined we may be dropping him after the next appointment.  We went to ZR Hek's house(an old member from 2 years ago who only speaks Surinams) with the intention of baptizing her daughter, and/or reactivating her grandson who is missionary aged.  Elder Lake had the Hiccups and Zr Hek offered to pray for him.  She offered this super baptist prayer and asked that he'd be healed.  His hiccups ceased immediately.  We laughed pretty hard, realizing that she was more faithful than we assumed. 

There is this Korean restaurant I want to eat at today, Elder Lake wants to go get a steak.  I think either way will be tasty, but I'd definitely take the Korean place over a steak place.   Zr Devredis gave us some Tamarind cookies she makes for a living.  They weren't cookies, and weren't all that good.  It was more like a big smarty that didn't taste like a smarty but like Tamarind.  There is this other crazy fruit here called Mope' it makes really tasty juice, I think I'd prefer Markoesa juice or Mango Juice, but Mope' is unobtainable in the states as far as I know.  They also have this one called a Zuurzaak.  Sour pocket.  That makes good juice too.  We've got tons of bananas freezing for smoothies and milkshakes right now.  Bananas, coconut milk and pineapple makes good flavors. 

We make a good team you 5 and I. 

Love you all lots

-Elder Hulme