Elder Hunt: March 14,2016

Hallo iedereen!! Dit week voel me een beetje anders. De stad is heelemaal verschillent dan de stad maar ik hou er van!!

I absolutely LOVE it here in my new area. The city of Paramaribo is soooo different from the jungle of Uitkijk. My new companion is Elder L, and he's from Mesa, AZ! (Yes we talk about Arizona A LOT). Random fact: Elder L favorite pizza buffet was in my area in Mesa haha. He's only been out on his mission a transfer longer than I have been, but he's been in Suriname 3 transfers longer than I have, so his Dutch is much better than mine.

Our possession is a little interesting in the city. We cover two different areas of the city; Munder en Gijersflijt (G-'i'-ersfl-'i'-t), which are a 30 minute's bike ride away from each other. Our apartment is SO nice! We pretty much live in a penthouse in suburb Paramaribo. We live on the second floor of a member's house, Zuster Maarlene. Zuster Maarlene LOVES the missionaries! She gives us food every time she sees us, and makes us dinner at least 2 to 3 times a week.

The Paramaribo branch is the largest branch in Suriname, with about 90 people that come every week. It's weird, since there's 8 missionaries that serve in this branch. I've never been in a branch like that, but it's really nice. It's really exciting for us as missionaries right now. In order for a branch to receive it's own church building (one built by the church), the branch needs to have an average of 100 people coming to church every week for 6 months. So that's our goal right now as missionaries is to get church attendance up and over 100 people in attendance so the branch can get it's own church building! The cool thing is the church started a new group in the area of Commowijne which took about 15 active members away from Paramaribo branch. At that point the branch was still at 90 people a week. But now, even with the new group, we're hitting 90's. It shows that the branch keeps growing and we'll hit 100 people in no time!

I'm still getting acquainted with our area, but we have some really cool things in the works right now. One of our most progressing investigators right now is a guy named Colif. He's been coming to church for the past month which is awesome! He's been reading in the Book of Mormon and absolutely loves it at church! He's one fire right now! He does love to talk when we go over there to visit him which makes it a bit difficult to get through the lessons, but we keep on going! We're wanting to set a baptismal date for mid April for him. We'll see what happens.

There are so many awesome people here in Munder/Gijerslijt! They are absolutely awesome and have such cool testimonies. It really is a privilege to be able to be out here, teaching these people. They have such a strong desire to do what's right, which is to follow Christ and His gospel. We have been promised that if we build on the gospel of Jesus Christ, we cannot fall. Het is op de rots van onze verlosser, dat wij moeten bouwen! I'm so grateful for the chance that I have to be out here, serving a mission! Suriname has to be one of the most random and unique places you can get called to, teaching Christians, Hindus, Muslims (all in Dutch), and in the Caribbean too! It's crazy but soo cool.

Have a great week!

Ik hou van jullie!!!