Zone conference May 16th

This week President & Sister Egbert came, it was awesome!! Zone conference was about temples I learned so much from it, I miss going to the temple. I love the spirit you feel when you enter the House of the Lord. I encourage you to go to the temple. It is the closest thing to heaven we have here on earth.




I ran over a snake on Monday. I t really scared me because I didn't expect it at all. And at first i could not tell what it was but then I had a closer look...I couldn't help but scream! Unfortunately I could not take a picture as this was a very busy road. Perhaps next time.




Our investigator Hugo is doing very well. He prays a lot about the law of Chastity and he then talks to his girlfriend about it. He even went to the Binnenland (basically in the jungle, his girlfriend is currently taking care of her mom) just so he could explain it to her in person. he asked her to maary him. However her mom is against it and keep asking:Why do you want to marry now? My daughter wont marry.
Its very rare for people to get married here and when the do its very strange, it just isn't tradition. Hugo, however, has been considering moving out, he also spoke to his boss and said he no longer wants to work on Sunday because that's when he needs to be at church. It was amazing when he told us this cuz we never even went over the ten commandments. He also doesnt drink or smoke anymore. We also haven´t taught him the Word of Wisdom. He just said: " I don´t want to do those things anymore and I want to get baptized" He is so excited to get baptized. He once said: " I still remember when you found me (points at me) and asked what I think God expects from me and that´s when m life got changed" He also has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon. He then told us: "I have something to confess, sometimes I read the Book of Mormon...I fall asleep. Why do I fall asleep? I don not want to fall asleep"
 


We had the chance to go teaching with Zuster Egbert. I must admit, I got a bit nervous but I feel like the lessons went really well. We go to see Kalusha and talked about the Plan of Salvation. We read in Mosiah 16:6-8, I think it was those verses where it talks about how thru Christ we can have the Resurrection and how the grave is not the end of our lives. It was a really good lesson.



While waiting for our interviews with President Egbert, in Paramaribo church, a couple got married, I was able to attend the wedding and got free foo which was pretty sweet! They looked so happy. I think the groom was a less active and the bride is a new convert.


Also there was 2 baptism´s this week, as usual Zuster Jorgensen and I have to fill the baptismal font and drain it. Filling it up can be quite scary as this is Suriname and you always find cockroaches, frogs and sometimes lizards and spiders and I even found a butterfly. This week we found two cockroaches and two frogs. they were still alive which meant we had to kill the roaches. Not very fun as they are really fast. I´m definitely getting tougher on my mission. The baptism was beautiful though, Sabitha was so happy when she came out of the water, she then bore her testimony.
 Hope every one is doing well back home! I love you all so much! Speak to you soon.

Skyping on Mothers day May 9

  Skyping everyone on Mothers day was AWESOME! The only time I had a desire to be disobedient and wanted to Skype longer!! Lots of pictures this week to share, they are mainly from my last P-Day as I went to New Amsterdam in Commewijne with a member, Sister Ibrahim. She´s awesome, Mom you should add her on Facebook, I think you two would get along really well.

Here is a sweet spiritual moment...we asked Ramona, whom we had a lesson with, to say the opening prayer. In her prayer she bore her testimony she said: "I`m grateful for the Book of Mormon, and I know its true, I know it with all my heart." I love her so much, she´s amazing.




We did a lot of service this week, we baked A LOT of cookies thanks to my cookbook (Mom made me my own personal mission cookbook);) We also made ice cream for Ramona´s birthday. The cookies were meant for Kalusha, as his Dad died. But we still had so many left overs, we decided to give them to less actives. You should´ve seen their faces, they were so happy! They cold not believe it that we made cookies for them. They immediately tasted them too and were saying...they were delicious. One of our less active even had tears in her eyes because she was THAT happy! It was such a humbling experience for me because cookies are nothing special. But they really do not have much and financially its´getting harder and harder for them.

We have been focusing a lot on serving others. And honestly...serving others makes me so happy! I just know that´s what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to help each other! Life on earth is literally to prepare ourselves to meet our Heavenly Father again. Let´s use this time to prepare in any way we can. Read your scriptures, develop your relationship with God by serving others, by fulfilling your calling in church, by praying to your Father in Heaven who loves you, use the Atonement  to become His disciple, which is in full detail in your Patriarchal blessing.

A lot of people cancelled on us this week, which actually turned out really well because we were doing so much service. It was also nice because we could take this time to go contacting, which actually involved a lot of rejection. We Klop (knock) at this one house, the older woman living there already saw us but she was kind of hiding behind her curtain, which a lot of people do here.So then I just said. "hey, how are you? We are sister missionaries and we have a message to share with you. Are you willing to come outside?" The nice thing here is; you can be bold and people dont really get offended, they actually quite like that. Anyways her head quickly disappears from the curtain. But w I could still tell she was there as the curtain was kind of see through. So I just kept talking to her. Then she walked away, but I had a feeling we still needed to stay even though I thought we got rejected. She then comes out of the backdoor and says: "You can come inside". She offered us a drink, we talked about her family, she went inside to grab pictures and showed us ALL of her photo albums. Let me tell you...she had a lot of them! But it felt good listening to this sweet lady. She is so nice.  We shared a little message with Olivia about how she´s a daughter of God and that  He loves her.

                                                                         At the funeral


We also went to a funeral this week, and its definitely something I will never forget, a little strange, lasted for 2 or 3 days. The first day they sing from 7 pm till in the morning. The 2nd day they have the ceremony, they then carry the casket and dance with it whilst it is on their shoulder, pretty impressive. They sing and dance, the 3rd day if he/she gets cremated, they throw the ashes  in the ocean and they sing.

I hope everyone is doing well. I love you all so much! And also keep involving Heavenly Father in your life, we can not do it without Him!

                                                               with Sister Ibrahim

                                     The "cool" rain jacket my parents sent me ;)

More pictures May 2

During a lesson, this parrot kept tucking at my shirt

                                                  Enjoying some ice cream

                                                                         Lots of rain

                                                         My brother is everywhere ;)

Rough week May 2

This week was a little rough...my companion and I were both sick! I had some really bad stomach aches, Zuster Jorgenson was sick...didnt have a voice. So we had to cancel our appointments, we still went out but when we felt weak or worse...we had to go back home. Actually it was kinda fun, it was nice to stay inside whilst its raining and having fun together, but then on the same time...we did not like it because all we want to do...is go out teach and serve others!! Luckily this week we feel a lot better so I´m excited to be out all day!!

Unfortunately Kalusha, our boxing teacher, his Dad died a few days ago. He called us with the news, not my favorite phone call. Kalusha is quite sad about it though, we were still able to text him uplifting messages and deliver some homemade brownies. The funeral will be held this upcoming week, hopefully we´ll get to see him soon.

Hugo is now on date...his baptism will be May 28th!!! I´m pretty excited and he has progressed a lot! We also had to fill the baptismal font on Friday as there were 4 baptism on Saturday. It definitely got me pumped up to work harder so then the next time we´ll be filling the font...it´ll be because an investigator of ours is getting baptized!

We visited with Sister Ria, she hasn't been coming to church in a really long time, she had to take care of her mom while her Dad went missing. Thats the reason she hasn't come to church, however her Dad randomly showed up again and is back home and still she´s not back at church. I really dont know what is keeping her from coming, whenever we have a lesson, the Spirit is super strong! Last lesson we shared our favorite verse in the Book of Mormon. And I know she can feel it, even she admits it. However so far she hasn´t been to church. We contacted her sister, Anna, she is now receiving visits form the Elders and has got a baptism date! Someone form her old church came and told her that she is doing something wrong by getting lessons from the Mormon church. Anna than pulled out her Bible and bore her testimony, she said: "In here it talks about the Holy Ghost. I can feel it whenever I go to the LDS church, I was never able to feel that before. And every time I get a visit from the missionaries, I feel the Spirit just as strongly. And that is how I know that I am on the right path!."



                                                On the door it says: "Jesus for life"

                         Little Fanny, whom I love so much, sister of Zuster Zeegelaar

Crazy week April 25

Crazy week and unfortunately not much time to email...

On Wednesday we always have a FHE at Zuster Yetty, we decided to talk about missionary work, however when we  got there...Zuster Yetty invited a bunch of Belgian students that were leaving the next day. They had a BBQ, there must have been like 30 more Suriname people eating and talking. It seemed like they were having a great time, I then thought: we might not have a lesson. Zuster Yetty then says to every one: "The missionaries are here to share a message". I was so scared!!There were so many people!! We then decided to watch a Mormon message, I think its called: The Hope of Light. And we than bore our testimonies. The Spirit was ridiculously strong!! It was an amazing experience, so that night we got 12 new investigators!!

We visited a less active, Patricia, she told us that she was really really sick and she could not understand why she had to be sick. She´d prayed to God and read her scriptures. She was really sad. But then I shared a scripture in 1 Nephi. I cant really remember where exactly...but it talks about that God loves us and we dont know the meaning of all things. I reassured her that even though we dont know the meaning of everything, we can find comfort in knowing that He loves us!! She than started crying and said: "Yes I know that He loves me".

We got Ramona on a baptism date! It was amazing, it will be in October, which I know is far but thats because she needs to get married first. We encouraged her to kneel with us and ask Heavenly Father when to get baptized, just another amazing experience! She started smiling and said: "I know I need to get baptized and I want to get baptized as soon as possible". I love her so much, she´s amazing.

This week we had to fill the baptismal font which took forever! Meaning we had to cancel on some people, we also had a lot of bike problems...meaning we had to cancel on a lot of people. Even though those things happened, we were able to somehow have a decent amount of lessons with others. This was just a really good week!

Love you all, hope everyone is doing well! Speak soon!

Transfer calls April 18

On Saturday we got our transfer calls. I will be serving in Kwatta and my companion will be Zuster Jorgenson, so nothing is changing there. However 2 areas will be shut down due to not having many sister missionaries. My old area Balona Park is shut down and so is Paramaribo North. Zuster Wood (my 1st companion) is going home on Tuesday, I´m sad cuz I will miss her, she´s a lot of fun but I´m excited for her to begin her new adventure. With her 2 more sisters are leaving Suriname. Zuster Walsh and Zuster Ibrahim, she will be serving in Belgium/Netherlands. A lot of things had happened and as I could not write last week...I´ll have to update you on that too.

Kalusha is less active, he´s the one who taught us some boxing, and as it turns out..I´m a natural at it :) In his closing prayer he said: I´m grateful that people aren´t giving up on me". He is so cool! Yesterday he came to church, afterwards we checked on him and he then said how he was able to feel the Spirit again. It was just a sweet moment, I´m just so grateful being able to see people´s testimonies grow!

Then there´s Nicole, she has 4 kids, in RS meeting she said how many people told her not to come to this church, but she wanted to see for herself. She has only met with the missionaries 3 times! She continued: "But now that I´m in church, it feels so different from other churches. It feels good! I really feel good inside and I think that this is the right path for me". What a golden investigator. I even had the chance to be in a lesson with her last week as we were on exchanges. So now that there aren´t many missionaries, we will be teaching her which I´m very excited about!

Huge miracle this Sunday..Patricia came to church! She kinda lives in French Guyana, she´s the one who cried in our lesson when I was bearing my testimony. Due to her working in French Guyana we only see her once a month. So you can imagine what a suprise it was to see her coming to church! She was beaming with joy!!

I love the Asmoredgos family!! I love them so much, they are cool, 4 boys with the oldest being 10 the youngest is only a few months old. Sister Asmoredgo was actually in the hospital for a few months. We had a chance to visit her at the hospital, which was nice. She showed us some pictures of her when she was serving her mission in the Dominican Republic. She was the very first sister missionary  from Suriname!!

Zuster Walsh came to Kwatta, so I was on an exchange with her.  Shes a crazy missionary, a good crazy, she just loves every one and she isn´t afraid to talk to everyone. It was a very good experience...also a little scary...she took her glasses off as it was raining...her eyesight being minus 8 which is double of mine...

I´m really excited for this transfer though, we really want to focus on getting less actives back to church and have a service project at least once a week! Somehow giving service here is hard...everyone just says they dont need help with anything. Which is a bit frustating, cuz I just want to help even if its taking the trash out. So my challenge to you... invite the missionaries over to help you, they will love it, they do not see it as a burden!

I love you all so much, cant send pictures this week cuz I forgot my camera at home, which just means you´ll have more pictures next week ;)

Pictures cuz I dont have time for email April11

   

                                               

                                                        Boxing lessons with Kalusha!