Go Get em Cowboys

Well we just had a really amazing experience. Guyana and it's famous black outs are the worst. This one led to something. We had a hard week and saw only one person with a baptismal date this week. (Korwin) Akeela's mom does not want her to get baptized because her mom believe baptism should be done once. Her mom is pretty hard hearted. Our recent convert Shannon is her neighbor and says that she will have a talk with her. Got the fingers crossed. Korwin is always busy with work and now got malaria. The miracle is that with the black out we went shopping and then got Elder Tupou a haircut and then there was still no power so we saw Rishma who has a baptismal date but she has been in the hospital in Georetown which is really far away all week. We saw her and she is humble both physically and spiritually. We just followed up with her on the Restoration and these trials are helping her want to come to church even more. She really felt our love for her. It was a really good lesson. Now to fill you up on the past 2 weeks. Well I met a Jehovah's Witness couple from Poland and they wanted me to take a picture of them with their iPhone 6 Plus and just about nothing could get me trunkier. I want an iPhone so bad!!!!! We had an exotic meal from the senior couple too. What the heck is lasagna? I am so used to curry now that it has become strange to eat something that is common back at home. I made a few different curries the past week. Shark, gator, iguana and deer. It is almost like my Dad's mission in England but instead of deep fry it's "Throw it in the curry pot!" I better get American food right when I get home though. I will cook curry for home but give me a week or two. I want normal food ha ha. Well Akeela is really smart and remembers it all. She is 15 but like I said her mom does not want her to get baptized. This just drives me crazy! I hate when parents don't let their awesome kids get baptized just because they aren't as cool. Like I said though I made gator curry and it was pretty dang good! My alligator scripture case seemed to stare at me while I ate the curry though. We also bought some iguanas and kept them as "Pets" just for 2 days because we bought them on a Saturday to eat them as a zone on Monday. They didn't last all the way there to the grill so I chopped one head off. The knife was dull so it took one hundred chops to get the head off. I cringed pretty hard. One of the iguanas that was big slapped this kid in the face with it's tail. It was a loud wack but sad and hilarious. Gladly the kid is okay but man he wept hard! I had to laugh a bit. Elder Tupou is interesting though. The language barrier makes teaching really hard. He is a good kid just needs to work on somethings. I just want the best for him. He is great though. Last night he pushed me good. We went to Georgetown today but last night he said we will not go because the apartment was a mess. I told him that if I clean the kitchen and the bathroom that night that we will go to Georgetown. I clean pretty quick and we had fun today in Georgetown. That's a good push from him. He is a great companion. Well I am out of time and stories. So much to say but I think I got it all. Love you all and see you before you know it!

Being Obedient

(From last Monday) Well we got carried away eating iguana and I have fun stories to tell but I gotta save it for next week. Gotta be obedient and finish emails at 6!

Go Get Em Cowboys

Well this week my buddy/District Leader, Elder Jacobson taught something pretty interesting. In district meeting we talked mainly about following up. We need to stop giving out meaningless commitments and need too follow up the next day either in person or by calling them. We need to encourage our investigators like coaches do when you work hard. Elder Larson who is one of the Zone Leaders made a mention to how he had 2 tennis coaches once. One was really quiet and the other one would acknowledge everything good that he would do. We need to be proud of our investigators. Lately we have been trying to get our members in the Rosignol Branch to help us. We are teaching most of them how to actually teach the Restoration. Now a question to ask all the members of the church back at home. I am sure you know the Restoration, but do you know how to teach it? It can be pretty simple. Study out of Preach My Gospel this week and work with the missionaries. Maybe ask them if they can teach you how to teach. It's actually pretty fun and easy. This week we had a nice opportunity to serve a member. Sister Persaud had a pile of mud/sand that she needed moved into her yard to fertilize her garden. I was pretty sore after but I gotta be honest I think I am going to work out a bit more when I get home. Gotta keep the weight good and keep away from the Twinkies. The transfer just ended and after 3 transfers (4.5 months) with my good buddy Elder Palavi I will be getting my next Polynesian. This one right from Tonga and he came out with Elder Palavi so he might need to learn English a bit more. I look forward to it though. 2 transfers left! Don't get trunky! This past week we also had a Zone Conference and it really hit me. They talked about being strictly and exactly obedient. No cutting edges. Being close to home sometimes you cut a few corners to be honest. Sometimes I don't shave every day and it's kinda normal out here in Berbice. Guyana is Men's Country. Berbice is the manliest. President Mehr related obedience to building a home. He has worked a lot as a construction guy so he taught us a lot. He said that if the person we build for asks for a certain floor but you get one that looks like it for cheaper you are not being obedient. It was a real shocker when he said at the end of building the house the person throws us the keys after we built their house and tells us that it's all ours now. That is how it is. We build our own kingdom. Don't make shortcuts there. Also since we run 2 branches President Mehr called us cowboys and said that we get to make callings for people. We basically run the church here in the branches. There is this one street we have been working on in Rosignol but it's next to a church so a lot of people just kinda brush us off. One lady we found seemed not too promising but we met up with her even after I had the feeling that she would just brush us off and we taught her anyways. She is really smart and understood the Restoration really well! Her name is Rishma and she wants to come to church but she didn't come this week because she was too busy. We are going to take a member by on Thursday and get her fellowship. The same day we talked to one of my recent converts and we know the neighbors and one of them likes us. She is a 14 year old girl named Akeela and she already wants to be baptized for Bush Lot branch. We just gotta get her to church. It's hard regulating who gets to church when we cover 2 branches. I feel like Spider-Man on the first Spider-Man movie where the Green Goblin was holding Mary Jane and all the civilians and the Green Goblin drops them both. I was sustained as the Branch Secretary for Bush Lot branch when I didn't even go there. At least they told me before hand. It's pretty funny because I was basically already doing all that stuff. I am getting to know how to use MLS which is supposed to be pretty confidential but no one in Berbice (with the acceptation of a few branch presidents here and there) knows how to use MLS. I also met a nice Polish Jehovah's Witness couple. They both had the iPhone 6 Plus and asked me to take a picture for them with the Guyana scenery. About nothing else could get me more trunky than holding that phone! We talked a little about religion but as usual they were not interested. Really nice people though. One Indian lady was asking Elder Palavi all about Australia and she asks what fruit they have there. In the Caribbean they don't have strawberries so if you even mention it they go all crazy. He mentions that they have that and she gets weird and shakes her body and says "OOOOOH MOUTH WATERING!" We both looked at each other trying not to laugh. Well that's about all for my fun nice week. Guyana is great and I gotta say I will miss it soon enough.

P.S. I got alligator meat I am going to cook once I get propane AGAIN!

Some pictures from Zone Conference and stuff.

New Year 2015

Don't want to get to get too trunky here but oh man I get home this year! It's not too long till then either. Gotta be honest in saying it's hard to not count down a little bit haha. Well work is getting hard here and not seeing too much success. None of our investigators are coming to either branch because we split our efforts instead of working hard on one branch. Kinda caught in the middle of it all. If we could just focus on one branch, one of the branches would be doing really good. Our branch that was leading has been going down because we have not been able to go there as often. They are down to about 29 people when it's usually around 60 people. No investigators in either branch. We have found one street in both areas where we find some success though. In one street we found some kids and did some street teaching. The kids loved it! We taught about how God talks through prophets. The kids want us to teach their families too. Part of this week that drove me crazy was how I had this rash (went to the doctor and I am all better now) and it itched so much! I opened a window and it just fell! I did nothing like being rough and it hit the water pipe so we had no water! I was going insane! We got the pipe fixed the next day though so I am doing so much better now. We did get to go to the senior couple's house and take a nice hot shower the next day. I love that feeling and knowing that really soon I will feel that every day makes me so happy! Well on New Years there was a black out (Happens all the time here in Guyana) and one member drove his motorcycle into the church and turned it on so people could see. I tried to warn everyone that carbon monoxide is pretty bad for you but they kept doing it for the new years eve party. #OnlyInGuyana Then we got in a van a few days later and the van driver stops off at a gas station and goes and takes a shower. What the heck? He brought a change of clothes and everything. Everyone laughed at him. Last story is about a dog. One dog that we always walk by, who I hate so much started to bark at us. I gotta say I kicked him right in the face one time. He tried to scare me and Elder Palavi and so I went to kick him and his buddy comes from behind and bites me right under the butt and runs away! What a chicken dog! It only nipped it but left a small mark. I want to get both those dogs and just kick them in the face and drop them in the trench haha. Well that's about all for this week. See you next week! I won't be saying that for too many weeks anymore now haha.

Street teaching, fun kids

Christmas is over - Back to work

Christmas is over so let's get back to work. New Years is this week so I hope that people won't shut us out again because of parties but then again it's the Caribbean so I can kinda expect that they will shut us out. Strange thing to say but I think I am going to cut down on soda and try to quit. I had like 6 Dr. Peppers and then I did like a mini burp throw up and the acid gave me a sore throat for the day before Christmas Eve and on Christmas Eve. Then it turned into a kinda bad cough but now I think I am okay. Well I forgot to say last week on our way to Georgetown we were driving and a cop pulled us over with just a normal car by honking at us. He had a hat but I guess he didn't have a striped shirt like he should have. He made the driver who was Elder Larson go to him and told him he had to pay $10,000 ($50 US) right then for cutting someone off (Which he didn't do) or go to court and pay $30,000 ($150 US). We didn't want to pay because we know it was because we were white boys so we had a Guyanese go talk to him too and we pulled the phone out to call a senior couple and he thinks we are calling a lawyer or something and he knew what he was doing was wrong so he let us go. It was so funny! I could only imagine what was going through his head. They always try to scam people so they can get money in the holiday times and then he sees white people who are prefect targets until we get our lawyers. Probably scared him half to death and thought he was going to lose his job so he let us go. I bought a good amount of American Wonka candy in Georgetown. It's easy to drop big bucks there because they have nicer things. I kinda regret sharing my nice candy with other missionaries though because it would have lasted me a while. We played White Elephant and I got a cheetah print neck pillow and then we watched Frozen. That was a good movie! No wonder everyone likes it. I gotta say that I want a girlfriend like Elsa so that she can make it snow all the time. I am tired of living in the heat my whole life. After watching the movie I got to go spend the night in Diamond which was my first area. I got to see my old branch president and his wife and daughter. I am so glad they remembered me and they want me to come back. The next day we went and got some nice philly cheese steaks (Told you Georgetown has everything!) and I have been wanting a Christmas tie really bad! They know I love pepper sauce so they made me swish it in my mouth for a minute like it was mouth wash and then drink it. They filmed me the whole time. It did burn a bit but it was worth it for a snowman tie. We decided to buy gas again so we don't have to cook outside anymore. I don't think the gas leaking anymore. Well we had an incident where we could not get keys to either church on Christmas Eve so Elder Palavi could not Skype his family because he has to Skype a day early because it's already tomorrow in Australia. An awesome guy who is high up in the church here in Berbice who is also an RM drove over a bridge that charges you a hefty toll and then a long drive just to give us the extra keys. He really was the hero of Christmas. If it wasn't for him neither of us would have gotten to Skype. Christmas morning we got to have a nice Christmas breakfast with the new Senior Couple the Avondets with pancakes and turkey bacon and all that. It almost felt American. They were so cool and got us nice American goodies because they just got here. They got us huge M&Ms and a jar of peanut butter for everyone because they thought we didn't have it here. It was pretty funny because they spent overweight baggage fees so they could bring that and then they sell it here anyways. They were so nice though and we all pitched in together and got them a stuffed Alligator. We put a little Santa hat on it too. So my animal of the week this week is kinda dead and wearing a Santa hat. It was nice and cheap too. Gator stuff is pretty cheap. Let me know if anyone wants a gator scripture case or wallet or anything.

We got to watch "Frozen" for Christmas!