Elder Hunt: Merry Christmas December 21,2015

Hallo hallo en groetjes van Suriname! Holy cow it's been a crazy week this week! A lot of stuff has been happening and my head is still spinning from it all!

I am absolutely loving it here in Uitkijk! The first thing I have to say about Suriname is I can't believe how much of a European influence there is here. Having spent about the same amount of time in Europe as I have in Guyana, it's super interesting to see how Suriname is similar to both. There were three things I was looking forward to the most here in Suriname, I would be able to use my Dutch finally, I get a Dutch bike, and there's strop-waffles all over the place.

We left for Georgetown Tuesday night and flu to Voog en Hoop, Suriname Wednesday morning. Me, Elder Burr and Elder Buehler left from Guyana that morning. Sister Parker also got her MKV so she flu into Suriname that night. It's awesome that we all got here so quickly. I remember my first impressions of Suriname were that it was very similar as Guyana, only all of the sudden everything was in Dutch. It was a bit of a shock to see that. Suddenly all this stuff I learned in the MTC's become very relevant haha.

We drove to Uitkijk, where I met my new companion Elder Dibb. Elder Dibb is an awesome guy. He's from Pleasant Grove, Utah and has been out a year longer than I have. He speaks great Dutch and despite what he says, he's also very fluent in Sranan Tongo (literally Suriname Language). Here in Suriname the official language is Dutch, but the further and further away from the city you get the more and more likely people are to speak Sranan Tongo. It's a language developed by the slaves here way back when that didn't want to learn Dutch, and people still speak it today.

We have some awesome investigators here in Uitkijk. We are currently working with the Ranarajo family, a fun family of 7 that are very receptive to everything we teach them. The only thing that's keeping them back from baptism is church attendance. Other then that they've been reading and praying and doing everything else we've asked them to do. They're awesome. Another of our investigators is Melissa, who's been very receptive to everything as well. She's been reading and hopefully we can get her to church within the next few weeks.

I honestly am very glad I got assigned out here to Uitkijk. It's very beautiful and very clean. As President Skipper (our Branch president said), "Het is heel vreugde en stilde uit hier in Groningen. U #### dit niet vinden in de staad". We do a lot of biking out here. We bike on average 20 to 30 miles a day, about 110-120 miles a week. I have a super nice bike to help with it though. It's a Dutch-made beach-cruiser, imported from the Netherlands, who have some of the best bikes in the world. I can't' help but think "Don't mind Elder Hunt out here. He's just hanging out in Suriname, riding his imported, Dutch beach-cruiser through the Amazon jungle." The people out here are awesome too. The only things I really don't like here are the amount of biking we do, and at night you have to keep your eye on the road for anacondas. Other then that Uitkijk is awesome!

I don't have a tone of pictures for this week which I apologize for. I don't have my camera yet but hopefully I'll get it this week. I am absolutely loving Suriname though! Where else can you find cobblestone roads and chocolate and cheese delicacies in the middle of the jungle? One of my favorite parts of Uitkijk is that there's a huge Chinese store (all the grocery stores here are owned by the Chinese) that is in the center of our area. When we're just absolutely beat we'll go get some Dutch chocolate or drinks or icecream. It's pretty great.

Thank you for all that you've done and all of the support that you've given me. I'll be back next week with more to come!

Elder Hunt