Guyana Christmas

Well Elder Palavi and I have been getting sick but not majorly sick. It's tough being away for Christmas but it makes you enjoy Christmas so much more at home. I do feel kinda bad for Elder Palavi though because he has one more Christmas after this. Well this last week I showed Elder Palavi some old pictures from the beginning of the mission. That makes me feel so old. We also had our filter expire so we drank some bad water which is part of why we have gotten sick but we changed the filters now because they brought us new ones from over 50 miles away. My shoes are pretty mashed up and we are in Georgetown for the holidays. We are going to watch Frozen later today as a present and then do white elephant. By the way every Guyanese person loves Home Alone as a Christmas movie. Well I am rushed on time and gotta go buy some presents for stuff. It's going to be fun! Christmas rush. I got my package and loved it! Mom always sends random candy for Christmas. It has been fun sharing it. See you on Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well I am getting excited for the Christmas season but it sure does not get cold for Christmas. I just wish it would get a little colder here. It's an endless summer. It's kinda a bummer that I get home just in time for summer. Well it has been a bit of a bummer because everyone seems to be avoiding us lately. Christmas time is always pretty hard but it makes me pretty happy to know that next year I am going to be enjoying a nice Christmas. I will probably treat the missionaries to a nice Christmas as well. We had a few funny moments this week in teaching people and they funny things they say. While teaching some age 40+ people we tried to teach them about the prophets. I showed them out of my little Bible I got the books of the Bible. I ask them: Now who wrote the book of Joshua? The lady replies to me "No one really knows you know." Elder Palavi had to answer for me. Then we ask who wrote Samuel and they tell us thinking they are all smart "Samuel!" And I go on to teach them that some books aren't named after the people "Like Psalms was written by-" She interrupts and yells "Written by Psalm!" Close it was by David. People are so funny. Well big news but not so much for me. The mission is getting split this upcoming summer. I will be enjoying myself but from the sounds of it Guyana and Trinidad with Suriname and French Guyana will be a mission with some islands up by St. Marten and then there will be a mission of the islands like Barbados and St. Vincent and so on. Well some more spiritual part of our week would be the message we have been going out and sharing. The church is doing the #ShareTheGift project and we have been teaching people about that. We have focused on charity and how that is the "Pure Love Of Christ" (Moroni 7) and we ask how we as members of the church can share the gift. It is really cool seeing how people are going to share the gift. There would be no Christmas without an Easter. I somehow forgot my planner back at the apartment so I forgot most of my good stories this week. Little Tarzan peed on me like 3 times because I scared him when I woke him up. So I shoved a banana in his face. Cute little monkey but man he can pee. Well that's about all I have got to say for this week. I am excited for Christmas and trying to keep myself untrunky. It's the most trunkiest time of the year. I will send pictures next week of the branch Christmas parties. It should be a blast!

Free Monkey

This week has been overall pretty enjoyable. Bushlot branch is still being hard for us but I bore my testimony in fast and testimony meeting about home teaching and visiting teaching. There were only 13 people there which is kinda average but we have gotten almost 30 people there before. It's because a ton of weddings happened this weekend. There was a big Hindu one that happened in Rosignol and we went at night to go get free 7 curry. This is my second time having it so I enjoyed it. Elder Palavi usually eats faster than me and finishes eating first but I ate mine pretty fast. It's wrapped up in a big leaf and it's cool to eat it with your hands. Well there were some Hindu people that we would pass by every so often and want to see their monkey. I took pictures with it a few weeks ago. We passed by and they called us in and just handed us the monkey and said "Here ya go." They weren't drunk or high or anything. I heard from the neighbors that they gave it to us because they heard monkeys have Ebola. Kinda funny that they gave it to us then. We can't have pets because it's against mission rules so we gave it to some members. They want to call him Caesar like from Planet of the Apes. I call him Tarzan. I will be darned if I do not just love this monkey though! He is so cute and cuddly. The Ramnoff family fed us last night and I wanted to sit next to little Tarzan and as soon as he saw I had a plate of food he stands up tall on his feet kinda like Libby would do. He is so cute! He doesn't bite unless you have him up past his bed time (Which we did) and if you tease him too much. I want to get him his shots and all that and take him home but I can probably guess what mom and dad are going to say in the next email. It is really nice seeing this family love the monkey so much though. The kids just play with him all day and they take him everywhere. If I can't have him I am glad that they can have him. Monkeys are cheap here though. Only $25 US for one. Well onto actual missionary work now. Jack is just not progressing. No matter how many times we tell him to come to church he just won't come. He is a bit crazy so we will probably drop him if he doesn't come to church this week. We have him scheduled to get baptized on the 27th. Shannon's husband has been so busy lately but we finally got to meet with him again yesterday. We taught the restoration to him and he is going to prepare for December 27th. We taught him the restoration so simply that even he can tell us it in 5 seconds. We just gotta get him to get to church too. He is awesome and has the desire to get baptized so we are praying and fasting for him. Well not much left to say but I hope to hear from you next week!

Berbice Warrior

Next Year I'll be listening to this CD with my family remembering my days here

we ran out of propane and had to cook outside

Leftover Turkey Curry

Animal of the week

Thanksgiving dinner

2nd animal of the week

Well being out here in Rosignol it seems like we don't get much support as I always say. Well 2 big bummers happened this week. We ran out of gas for our stove because it has been leaking and it seems like our washer has a slow leak so washing clothes has been no fun. As result of having no gas we decided to do it camping style. We took an oven rack and we made a fire. I made turkey curry because last Monday we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner in Georgetown with all the missionaries in Guyana. We ate till our bellies bust as they would say in the West Indies. At the end they asked "Who wants leftovers?" I ran into the kitchen without hesitation. I am tired of hot dogs, raman, and mac and cheese. We got to pack some pretty big bags with food. I eat that crappy food because they don't really sell anything good out here. Stores are a joke in Rosignol. We had Thanksgiving with this family who is LDS and works at the embassy. They had the cutest little white kids to play with and they just loved having us there. It got me ready to see my nieces and nephews again. Well I curried some turkey and some ashes got into it but it was still probably the best curry I ever made. I used masala this time and I think that's the key to a good curry. Then we had old white rice (so much better than the brown rice here) and I picked through the bugs and made some rice on the fire too. I liked it a lot. I am ready to make curry when I get home! So something that made me really cringe the other day was hitting a puppy. We always see dead dogs on the side of the road. I wonder sometimes if the dog just decides to end it all because life as a Guyana dog sucks. We were going down a road at night and the driver saw the puppy last minute. I was in the passenger side of the van and he tried to maneuver and get the puppy to be in middle of the car when we go over it but the puppy freaked out and I felt a little bump. It made me cringe. We had to turn around after a minute because he was picking someone up and we see the puppy having some kind of seizure in the road. Well things are getting tough. Jack wants to be baptized but he doesn't come to church. He is a little crazy though. We went to Rosignol branch this week and had a good amount of people but no investigators. Bushlot had 10 people because we didn't come. No investigators either. Balancing both branches is tiring and hard. Well we got our transfer calls and Elder Palavi is staying with me for a 3rd transfer. This is the first time I have ever spent 3 transfers with someone. I will have 2 transfers left and I requested that I go back to my first area in Diamond so I got my fingers crossed hard! Welp see ya later!