January 30, 2017 Fantastic and peachy week

Goedemorgen, goedemorgen, goedemorgen!!

It's been another fantastic and peachy week as a missionary! Lots of fun, exciting, and testimony building events happened this past week. One of the biggest things that happened this week is that all missionaries worldwide participated in a broadcast done by the church's missionary board. They announced some new changes that will be taking place in the missionary schedule. I'm not sure mom and dad would understand much but I know John and Drew, you would be interested in the new schedule. It gives missionaries more flexibility in their daily schedule. Missionaries are now given an extra half hour of personal time in the morning and at night. Daily Planning is now in the morning, just before studies. Also, Personal study is the only study hour required before going out to proselyte now. The flexibility part comes in because now missionaries can choose when to do Comp, Twelve week, and language studies, as well as Lunch and Dinner during the day. Missionaries then go back home at 9 pm, and then can choose to either go to bed an hour early (9:30), or get an extra hour of personal time (9:30 to 10:30). We also get two more hours of P-Day!

The church would also like the missionary schedule to be adjusted to the culture in their part of the world. They said for example, that missionaries in Latin America could wake up at 7:30 and go to bed between 10:30 and 11:30. There was a really neat quote by Elder Bednar, who said that the church develops and becomes more refined, "line upon line, precept upon precept". This is but one example of how the church is developing more spiritually, to fulfil the Lord's commandment to "fill the world with [His] gospel".

We keep working with our investigators. It's been a bit difficult to sit with our most progressing investigators, but we keep striving to sit with them. I had an absolutely bizarre experience this week. I'd never experienced it up into now. We just came out of a lesson and our following lesson had fallen through, so we had a little bit of contacting time before we moved on to our following lesson. So we decided to contact some houses that we'd tried before but when no one was home. The very first house we talked to, a man came outside, and we started introducing ourselves. This man ended up being a crazy bible basher (I wouldn't be surprised if he were a JW) who insulted us by saying we didn't know the bible and shouldn't be preaching the gospel. This guy ticked me off though, and got my blood boiling. I'm telling you right now, for all of you that know me as the calm person that I am, I'd never felt my blood rush like that ever in my life. I walked out of that situation just mad, and I calmed down for a bit. We then tried to contact another lady, who again, was a JW. She went off on some tangent about Abraham and Adam not being prophets, so we just left. It was so weird. I'd never experienced anything like being rejected like that before.

The time then rolled around to go to our next appointment. It was with Zelfie, and we taught her about the Plan of Salvation. I remember sitting in that lesson, and just pausing for a little bit while my two companions taught. I remember just this wonderful sense of peace come over me as we taught. The thought then came to me that "Spiritual light and knowing God does not come from Biblical knowledge, but from living and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ". That desire of having God in our lives can be described as a light that we feel. The great, spiritual truths of the gospel that enable each on of us to return to our Heavenly Father, really are simple and easy to understand. We are so blessed to be given the fullness of the gospel, and to have the Book of Mormon. It brings in that spiritual light that we all want, to return to our Heavenly Father.

Have another fantastic week. I'll talk to you in seven.

Ik hou van jullie!!!

Elder Hunt

What they ran into!

Ik en mijn collega's

time to cool down

Jan 23,2017

Goededag iedereen! Het lijkt als het al koud en snieuwachtig thuis is. Hier in Suriname is het lekker heet!

We had another great week. We had some fun experiences teaching people this week. A trio companionship is always a bit awkward because it's hard to figure out who should teach when. We're getting a good routine down that lets us all teach in unity though. For our zone activity today we went and played volleyball and soccer. Elder DeSeil is very good in soccer! He and the other Nederlander missionaries creamed the rest of us. (After a sports day you always feel sun burnt and sore).

We found a really nice lady to teach named Zelfie. We contacted her a couple of weeks back. She was apparently a previous investigator. Between the time the last missionaries taught her until now, she read through the entire Book of Mormon, in 6 months, ON HER OWN FREE WILL! She's super cool, and thoroughly understands everything that we give her to read. She likes to talk a lot, and will talk at us for hours if we don't cut in, but it's super cool to teach her and to see her willingness to learn now.

I also had a neat experience last night. We were planning on seeing an investigator after we went and visited some members. We saw our investigator at another house as we were biking to our appointment with the member. After the lesson we called her to see if she would be at that house or if we needed to go to where we normally teach her, but her phone wasn't on. We weren't sure what that meant, so we continued to bike on to where we normally teach her. But as we were biking we pasted the house I thought I saw her at (I wasn't exactly sure), and something told me to stop and go to that house. As we did a man walked outside and up to the gate. He greeted us and without saying anything else opened the gate for us and let us walk in. He pulled up three chairs for us to sit, and we started talking to him. He proceeded to talk to us about all these political/economic problems he's been dealing with. We then had one of the most spiritual Restoration lessons I've ever had. It was so cool to see the spirit work through you to tell you to do something for someone else.

I'm running out of time but I wish you all another wonderful week!

Ik hou van jullie!!!

Elder Hunt

Made his Dad's Italian sandwiches 

Suriname food

Hanging out with the monkeys

Zelfie's cute dog

Amazing Sunsets

Dutch style building

Jan 16, 2017 Wake up I am on!

Goedemorgen en groetjes vanuit Suriname!

We've had a good week. We've been focusing a lot on finding investigators lately, and have met some really cool people that have seemed to be prepared. We met one lady this week who was really sad when we talked to her because her son had ran away from home with her car recently. We talked to her about a lot about the Plan of Salvation and how the Lord knows what happens in our lives and will assist us and give us a reassurance of His love for us. We then tied that into the Restoration by talking about how these truths were Restored back to the earth through Joesph Smith. The spirit was really strong and was but one example of people we met. We also met others who were previous investigators, and again, would talk to us about the Book of Mormon and how cool they thought it was, without us even bringing it up.

We also met a really cool man from the Philippines, who was very interested in the Restoration when we talked to him about it. He's been all over the place and has visited many churches. Our first lesson with him was really good. He was asking us so many different questions like if we pay tithing or if we drink alcohol or if we do baptism by immersion, and he believed everything that we taught him! He had a good excitement about him, not sure sheer curiosity of 'that one church down the block'.

We had District Conference again this week. (District Conference is the equivalent to stake conference), and we worked really hard to get investigators there. It was really cool because three of them came and we're very happy that they did. It's a funny story because it was announced that the conference would begin at 10am. So we missionaries get there about 20 minutes early and I being the 'designated piano player' started playing prelude music as normal. After 20 minutes of playing another missionary taps me on the shoulder and informed me that the meeting was postponed for an hour. So I ended up playing piano for like an hour straight. I played like 40 minutes of prelude for a chapel stuffed with people and then another 20 minutes accompanying them while they sang.

The reason being why they postponed the meeting was because the church ended up broadcasting a message from Salt Lake City, live, to the Caribbean area for stake/district conference. Elder Christensen and Elder Cornish from the Sevently, Sister Burton, and Elder Neil A Anderson spoke, so it ended up being a mini General Conference. It was cool because the church flew three translators out of Belgium over to Salt Lake to translate the conference so that our district here in Suriname could hear the conference in their native language. It was a really good conference.

I was reading an article out of the Liahona about how we can recognize the Holy Ghost. I personally think that recognizing the promptings of the spirit is one of the hardest tasks to do in the gospel, but it's crucial for us. We take time and train ourselves to drown out the sounds of the world to recognize the spirit talking to us. It's a skill. It's like learning a language. We have to work. We have to struggle. It takes time. It we stop listening then we start to lose our ability to listen. Elder Christensen had a really cool quote. He said that we can recognize the spirit because "we have spiritual feelings within us". It makes thinking about the spirit easier to understand when you classify those feelings as 'spiritual feelings' or 'feelings from the outside'. D&C 136: 33" For my Spirit is sent forth into the world to enlighten the humble and contrite"...

Have another great week!

Ik hou van jullie!!!

Elder Hunt

Jan 9 2017

Goedemorgen en goetjes uit Suriname!!

What a week! We've had a tone of exciting things happen this week. We've had some really cool experiences with investigators and members.

Ten erste, 'k heb all een nieuwe collega gehad! We have our new companion, Elder De Seil. He's from my old area actually, in Munder back up in the city. I used to go to his house and teach him, and now here he is serving along side us, teaching with us side by side! He's a convert of 2 or 3 years, and is a super good teacher (and is a boss at soccer). It's been great serving with him. He'll teach us how to cook like Surinamers!

We had a cool experience with a new investigator family that we have. The Ritfeld family have met with the missionaries on and off. But they finally accepted an invitation to listen to the missionary lessons. Better yet, their three boys (ages 16, 14, and 13), came to church for the third time in a row! The first time the three of them rode the 25 minute bike ride to the church. The second time they paid for a taxi to take them, and the third time they got their mom to take them. It's super cool because these three boys are doing it on their own free will. The father had had doubts in the past over the Book of Mormon, but now he's told us he knows it's true and told us he'll come to church. We had an awesome lesson with the boys and the mother about the BoM, and brought along some family who are also members, President and Zr Linger. They're so excited that their family is accepting the gospel.

In Jacob 1:7-8 it 

 7 Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and  partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest...  8 Wherefore, we would to God that we  could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in  Christ, and view his death,and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world;

What a wonderful opportunity it is to share the gospel with others. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the fountain of light and truth that so many people don't realize they're looking for. Through diligent service in the church we can bless the lives of so many people. President Egbert always tells us to work diligently, but also that we won't see all our baptisms on our missions. He says that sometimes we won't know about other baptisms that happened until the after life. But diligent service is how the church of Jesus Christ is established and how it functions.

Have another wonderful week!

Ik hou van jullie!!!

Elder Hunt

has his own machete to help with yard work

With both of his comps

With a members pet bird

Suriname food

Happy New Year Jan 2, 2017

Goedemorgen! Groetjes uit Suriname! De tijd is zo snel voorbij gegaan! Wij hebben al een nieuwe jaar!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope everyone has been having a good Christmas break. I can barely believe that a year ago I was sitting at the gemeente Uitkijk church computer emailing family back home. New Years is HUGE in Suriname. When I say huge, I mean it seems like the entire city shuts down just to welcome in the New Year with tones of fireworks! People have been lighting off fireworks since Christmas, and they haven't stopped yet. They get so bad on New Years that the mission asked everyone to be in three hours early. Thanks to ear plugs though I was still able to get a good nights sleep ;)

I've also got some exciting news! Me and Elder Fleming are getting a third companion, and he's  from Suriname. I FINALLY HAVE A NATIVE SPEAKING COMPANION!!! His name is Elder DeSeil. He got his mission call to the Belgium/Netherlands mission, but does not yet have a visa to the Netherlands, so he'll be starting his mission here in Suriname. I'm super stoked to get a native speaking companion.

In terms of the work, Stephen came to church again! He looks so happy at church, and really enjoys coming. He'll keep working until school starts, so we'll start meeting with him again sometime this week to set another baptismal date. We've been teaching his sister Luciel, who has been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy, and remembers everything that we teach her (for a missionary, that is very convenient).

We lost contact with a lot of investigators with the busyness that the Christmas/New Years season brings, so this week we have a lot of following up to do so see who will still progress. The Wanica missionaries also had the chance to help the branch in a service project this week, painting a school down in Lelydorp. It's always great doing service with the members.

I read an awesome scripture this morning in 2 Nephi 25:27-28.

27 Wherefore, we speak concerning the law... [that we]may look forward untothat life which is in Christ... for the rightway is to believe in Christ and deny him not.

I love how it talks about "life that is in Christ". That helps us understand the difference between living Christ's gospel and not having the gospel in our lives. Living Christ's gospel always helps us progress towards meeting our Heavenly Fahter, so to say "life that is in Christ". By reflecting on the past year, we can see what things we can improve this following year, to see how we can better walk in the light of Christ. Happy New Year! Have a great week!

Ik hou van jullie!!!

Elder Hunt

the Wanica Missionaries painting a school

loves to SERVE

Christmas Candy

Walking after rain storm

Dec 27,2016

Wow! Deze is the laste tijd ik zal thuis in dit jaar schrijven!!! Maar wij hadden een goede Kerstmis geweest!

It's been a crazy last week. We've had it busy as well as the rest of Suriname. There was an apartment incident where the missionaries just north of us couldn't get any water in their apartment. So for Christmas Eve and Christmas they had to stay in our apartment until the landlord could get water back in their apartment. It was pretty crazy having 4 missionaries in our apartment during Christmas, but it was fun.

In terms of the work, we're continuing to teach the Dolaini family. We are having awesome lessons with Luciel and Stephina. Stephen has been working like crazy during the holiday season. He's been using this time off to earn some money so it's been hard to sit with him. We'll hopefully start setting with him again come next week. 

For Christmas Eve, the Crawfords, the senior couple here, had the missionaries over for a Christmas dinner. It was supper nice, and they also had a missionary-Christmas nativity. It was good to see the other missionaries in Suriname then. For Christmas we went to church, baked some cookies to give out to people, and taught a few lessons. In Suriname though, the 25th of December is only the first half of Christmas. Suriname also has Tweede Kerst, or second Christmas on the 26th. So we also visited some investigators as well and shared a Christmas message. We used the Light the World video the church produced. I love this video because it reminds me of how we can be disciples of Christ. In 3 Nephi 18:24 it says Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed.

We spread the light as we set an example for others and look for ways to serve others. Service is a wonderful thing, and benefits us in so many ways.

Have another wonderful week!

Ik hou van jullie!!!

Elder Hunt

Sweet Christmas Tree for 4 Elders to share

Christmas Eve Dinner 

District Christmas Eve

Vrolijk kerst! De kerst tijd is al gekomen! Merry Christmas

Vrolijk kerst! De kerst tijd is al gekomen! Ik kan me niet voorstellen hoe snel alles is gegaan!

Merry Christmas everyone! The Christmas season is flying by. I just seems like yesterday that we were celebrating Thanksgiving, and now we're nearing the end of the year.

Our primary focus this week was to find new investigators. We didn't have too many progressing investigators so we really worked to find some more. A lot of people are busy during the Christmas season so it was a bit difficult to find people. Towards the end of the week however we were able to find some really cool investigators. We found this young couple as we were contacting in one area. They talked to us about how they always see us biking around in the area. The wife thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses which is something we get a lot in Suriname. As we got talking with the husband, he was telling us about how he saw me and Elder Fleming biking home the other day in the pouring rain. He then told us that he told himself, "what ever message it is that they share, it sure must be important". It's nice to hear someone else complement you after an experience like that. People notice things that we do, even when they don't realize it. It may open their heart to hear the restored gospel.

We've been teaching this family, called the Dolaini family. We've been having a lot of success with them. We've been teaching them for several weeks now. We've been having awesome lessons with them. They're all so willing to learn. We were able to get two of them, Stephen and Luciel to the Branch Christmas party this past week. We were then able to introduce them to some of the members. That really helped them come to church as well. They're asking the right questions and are catching on to the lessons really well. We were shooting for the end of December as a baptismal date for them but it looks like we'll have to push it into January. They're progressing really well though. We're really excited for them.

We all have the wonderful chance to celebrate the Christmas season every year. It's a special moment that we all have to reboot and recommit to becoming more like the Savior. Just like in the Church's campaign, it is through the example of our Savior that we truly can light the World. My personal favorite prophesy of the coming of Christ is in 2 Nephi 19:6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Approaching December 25th gives us the chance to see what we can do to make the Savior more central in our lives. As we all do this, it will rekindle those precious moments we have each experienced in building our testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Ik wens jullie allemal een gelukkig Kerstfeest!

Ik hou van jullie!!! Vrolijk Kerst!!

Elder Hunt

Branch Christmas Party

homemade snowballs

pet birds they see everywhere

Hanging out with the monkeys

Birthday gifts

Beautiful sunsets