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!

Boom Baptism!

Got tons of pictures this week so I might have to do a couple of emails for pictures. First I gotta say that we are in Georgetown for Thanksgiving today! I love Georgetown so much! Such a fast paced life. Get out of the way or you will get hit by a van. Gotta maneuver around the people. Well this week we were learning about how to have effective branch council and how to get the work rolling here. We discussed how to knit together in unity the hearts of the members (Mosiah 18:21) Also this week I held a cute little monkey and I will be darned if that monkey was not the cleanest monkey ever! They said they bathe it daily and it smelled nice. It seemed to like us. Shannon and Korwin got married and baptized. Well Shannon got baptized that is but she is such a great example that her husband wants to get baptized next month. We are going to pray about a date for it. Shannon is such a wonderful lady. Her faith is so strong! She has wanted to get baptized since before we met her. We watched the Other Side of Heaven at an activity and she thought her baptism would be like the one the girl has. It was the opposite. 2 members came and we were locked out of the church till one of the members rode his bike to get the keys from the branch president. I was so upset with the people. I could not believe that only 2 people came but Shannon was so happy! So we got into the church and got the baptism suit and rode an expensive ride to the "beach" and it was all mud. I found a small place of water and went in wearing all white. The mud went up to my knees. It was tough but she was still so happy. I could not believe it at all. She is truly converted even though everything in the world went wrong. Something also that touched my heart is that my other recent convert who is not that smart is getting so smart! The Holy Ghost really does help. I hear they get wiser after baptism. It is so true. We taught her about Temples and told her to prepare for it. She understood it so well when we taught eternal marriage and baptisms for the dead. What almost brought me to tears was after teaching her she said to us "This is a good life. I am happy with the Gospel since I changed." She is so amazing! It touched me so much to hear her say that. Well working with 2 branches is getting really hard though. We have a baptism this week in the other branch called Rosignol but I guess our baptismal candidate has not been going to church. It's hard to know since I can't be in 2 places at once. In Bushlot branch we have been told by the 2nd councilor in the mission presidency (The big guns) that we need to reactivate the Melchizedek Priesthood holders. He told us that he knows we are working hard but to work harder. I almost didn't know that was possible. From the looks of it we have a lot of success but little support. My challenge to anyone reading this is to help the Recent Converts! Help the missionaries! It's not their job alone! People here expect a lot from us but to be honest they give us absolutely nothing! You wanna see a miracle? Be the miracle! Missionaries cannot and will not do it alone. Go fellowship and work with the missionaries. I can't wait to do it when I get home. We had a Bushlot branch council and they usually get way out of hand so I ran it with an iron fist. If they got somewhere else I put them back in line. I stuck to the agenda and asked them why they didn't do their visiting teaching. (The branch is basically a few ladies with 2 Melchizedek Priesthood holders) They all made excuses and I told them that the only reason to not visit teach is if that person is dead. No other excuse will be good enough. Some of the people go to other churches is what they will tell me. I tell them that because we have no visiting teaching is why we have only 26 people at the max. I will not take excuses. Well sad news of the week I found out something that will forever change my life. Wonka discontinued Shocktarts or Shockers as some call them. I have craved it for my whole mission. If I die please tell me they are in the Celestial Kingdom. I want them so bad! Well we are still looking at baptisms to come and just working hard!

Success Smells Funny

Well it's another hot week in Guyana. Nope it never gets cold here at the equator. I am going to have to go up to Utah when I get home and jump right into a pile of snow. Well we are looking at some big success for the upcoming week and next week. In the 2 branches we cover we have a baptism for Bushlot branch this week and then a baptism for Rosignol next week. Lots of success coming and it feels nice. We have been working hard and it just gets a bit old going back and forth between Rosignol and Bushlot. It's a 30 minute van ride between them both. This Friday our investigator Shannon is getting her money to get married and then baptized on Saturday. We are so excited for her and she has been excited to be baptized even before we met her. Surprisingly she actually likes the reverence we have at church. People in the Caribbean usually like the loud yelling and singing. One of these days I want to just walk into a church that is yelling and ask them "Why are you yelling? I can't really feel the spirit." I probably wouldn't literally do that but I wonder what they would think about that. We live near a church and every week we just hear a man yelling while preaching. Just put a disco ball in there and it would be a club. Or just put padding on the walls and the floor and give everyone a straight jacket and it would be a mental asylum. Next week Jack is getting baptized in Rosignol branch and it makes me so happy to see. He is a little strange but a really nice guy. He loves Jesus and tells us about every 5 minutes. While contacting this week we met a guy who seemed somewhat normal but he ended up being kinda crazy. I don't know what point he was trying to prove but here is what he talked about. He asked what color Jesus was and I ask him what he thinks. He said he isn't too sure but he watches a lot of documentaries and some of them say Jesus is black. I told him I knew a scripture in Revelations that Rastas use to prove Jesus is black but since Jews are white that Jesus was more than likely white. He then told me that the Leonardo Da Vinchie painting of the Last Supper was Leonardo's dad and 12 prisoners used as the model. Then he said that in Psalms 46 (I think it was 46) That it says Shakespeare. Every 46 words it says it. First 46 words is Shake. The next 46 is Spear. He marked it up and all that. I told him that it was a different "Speare" instead of "Spear". He had his universe shattered. Then he left us with some "advice" He goes on to tell us "I have come to the conclusion. Anything that you see is a deception. The things that you cannot see is reality." I asked him if the tree next to me was real. He was just confounded. I am not too sure what he was trying to teach me but it was interesting. He saw my new ring that I got finished and he was confused a bit. There are no real Zelda fans out here so I explain that it's God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost. It really stands for Courage, Wisdom, and Strength. Well things are going good here. I should be getting my gator gear soon. I will have to send a picture of my gator scripture case when I get it. Also my animal picture of the week is this random pig. Speaking of pig my recent convert fed us pork curry but she was a little scared because her husband who lives in New York is Muslim and she didn't want her neighbors to know that she made us pork. This week while eating at Church's chicken I was eating my food and CNN came on. It was strange seeing some stuff going on in America. The Vice President was doing a soldier funeral and it looked really neat. Made me proud to be an American but at the same time I realized how much is going on in the world. I read this card that has good missionary inspirational quotes on it that I got a year ago. I keep it in my wallet and I was thinking about it. One quote I like says "Most things in life are neither important or urgent. Sharing the Gospel message is both."

Just kinda hit me when I saw the news. What I am doing is of eternal importance. It was such a neat experience. Don't ever suppress a generous thought is a nice quote I remember we had by our fireplace at home. Never miss an opportunity to share your testimony. Well that is about it but I look forward to sending baptism pictures the next 2 weeks.

Love you all.

Crazy vs Normal; What is normal?

Not too much happened this week. I guess Birthdays weeks are always better. We went and saw a member who came back from New York and asked her how it was there. As she was telling us all that she loved about it she wanted to get to know me. She asked how long I have been out and I just tell her "I go home in April." She replies "Oh so you are a Zone Leader?" Oh man stake to the heart. At least she didn't keep asking things like District Leader? It was funny because my companion just looks at me and laughs. Oh well that's not what it's all about. Later in the week we saw one of our baptismal candidates in Rosignol. He is a little crazy but then again out here who isn't crazy? In the middle of us teaching him about prophets he tells us that he used to be Hindu (Second time he told us) and that Jesus cured him of HIV. Funny enough he isn't the craziest person around. The members think he is normal too. He wants to be baptized so I guess we will just teach him and go through with it. We have another baptism hopefully coming up in Bushlot too. The lady needs to be married though. It will cost her about $35 US which out here is a lot of money. I just hope she will make that sacrifice because she really wants to be baptized. On Friday night I got really sick and had a throbbing headache/fever and all my joints were stiff and it hurt to even get up. I got my companion to do everything for me. I could not drink much because I would go to the bathroom and it would all come out. I stayed in whole day Saturday and most of Sunday. We went to church and I still felt sick I took some medication and had to do a weird diet of flat 7 up and saltine crackers and some probiotic yogurt. I could not get the medicine I needed out here so I just bought some Nyquil and some fever reducer. Being sick always makes you miss your mom. We went to the other branch too because one member (Who is actually pretty crazy and reads out of the dictionary for his testimony) went up to the stand and cursed at the branch president and his wife and just went crazy. I guess they took him to the police station but I don't know what to think of it. It's hard to find people who are a bit more normal. I am feeling much better now though but our budget for this week is way low. I decided to do a Ramen Noodle diet. I will have 2 packs of Ramen every day this week. They only have chicken flavor though so this will be interesting. I have actually been craving Ramen though. I will let you know how that diet goes next week!

Fun Birthday

I never thought that Guyana could be so much fun! All the fun is in Georgetown though. I could not sleep knowing that I was about to be 21 though. I watched the clock till midnight. We got up at 4:30 am so that we could catch a ride with the rest of Berbice Zone to Georgetown. The Zone Leaders drove us all for a bit of a price. It's about a 2 hour drive to Georgetown though so we had some fun conversations. On the way to Georgetown something really freaky happened. A car came at us real fast swerving and almost hit us but as we got to the other side of the road this car hits a light post and jumps and spins a full 360 and then another 180 making the car face the opposite way. Looking out of the windshield and seeing that happen looked like something that happens on a movie. It really was a scary few minutes. We pulled over and saw the man just knocked out and the front tire is off. That car was totaled bad. The man was swollen in the face and bleeding a bit just from the initial contact. His girlfriend was freaking out in the passenger seat and got out unharmed. The adrenaline probably helped her feel no pain. People gathered around the smashed vehicle and I tried to tell them to leave the man alone. I have heard that you should NEVER take a body out of a crushed vehicle unless it's on fire or something, but a man went up the the guy going in and out of conscienceless and took off his gold chain. I don't know if the man stole the chain or what but then he took the body out of the car and put it on the side of the road. Another car came quickly and they loaded the two people in and they drove off somewhere fast. We didn't even stay as witnesses or anything but it was just a crazy thing that happened. It rained a lot on the way to town too so we drove really carefully and we were low on gas too. Finally we got to town and played some basketball at the church. I played some Domino with some other Elders and had a good time. Then we had some good trunky talk. We talked about favorite old video games. We had the big question be: Who is your favorite Smash Bros. Character? Fun talking with people. From there we went into town and went to OMG which is a steak house I have wanted to go to since I began here in Guyana. I had a steak for about $12 US and I have to say it was a decent steak. Nothing like a good old American one. The tab we made was a ton! We had like 16 Elders there so it was about over $100 US. Then we went to Brusters which is my all time favorite ice cream place in all of Guyana. From there we got back late and are going to email real quick so that's what I am doing now. Also we went to a store with a bunch of American electronics and games. I got to hold the iPhone 6 Plus. That thing is huge! I might just have to go with the iPhone 5 or just 6. Well tonight we are going to watch Mobsters and Mormons with our recent convert and some close families. The message will actually be good for the branch though. Without fellowship people will not become members of the church. Everyone needs to support people. We went to Bushlot branch yesterday and we had 20 people there. Not bad. Last week without us was 4 people. We discussed a branch activity and the people cared more about what we will eat than who we will bring. We need to get to work here. Lots of work in these two areas I got. Plenty of baptisms should be coming if we stay diligent.

Great idea for old car seats

Iphone 6+ (on a no shave birthday)

My birthday steak

Like the Guyanese Do

We got Elizabeth baptized on Saturday and for once I have to say that I was happy that I didn't baptize her. We did it in a "clean" trench but it was considered clean because it had no trash floating around in it. We also had Diwali this week and I did a trade off over in Rose Hall and it was pretty cool. I went into a Hindu Temple and it was a pretty interesting experience. People believe some interesting things. We didn't have many lessons this week because we prepared for the baptism and people were partying too much because of Diwali. There were plenty of fireworks and it was neat. We got a good amount of food for free but it was all sweets. The Caribbean is full of sweet things and sometimes I just want something savory to eat. I did get 7 curry for the first time just a few days before Diwali. I don't know all the 7 curries in it but some are pumpkin and chickpeas. Diwali is supposed to be vegetarian so there were no meats. I ate the 7 curry with my hands like the Guyanese do it. We are going to be focusing on another area named Bushlot now. They have like 13 people come to church a week. I raised Rosignol from about 30 to 60 in about the last transfer. I think the free chicken sign up thing is why a lot of people are coming to church though. They get free chickens to harvest and grow. In Bushlot we have the acting branch president who has a friend who wants to join the church and leave being a pastor behind and he wants to bring 5 other people with him into the church. I think Bushlot is about to boom. We had a goal for 5 baptisms this transfer but it might be possible that we go beyond that. Things are looking way positive and I hope that I get to make a positive report on that. I might finish up these last few transfers with a lot of success. Well not much left to say so I will talk to you all next week.

Classic Guyana

This week has been the cliche Guyana week. We got quite a few laughs and some good hard work done. We are covering 2 branches and just opened up a new area or actually starting to work in there. We plan on getting 2 baptisms there in Blairemont. It will be from a part member family so hopefully it reactivates the family. I made my new planner cover and I like it except we didn't have contact paper so the tape just looks unattractive. I decided that since I have only a few transfers left I would start putting cool memories from back at home as backside covers for planners. This one had a picture of Me and Jace with the singer of Silverstein and I showed it off to some people and they must have bad eye sight because they thought the singer was either: my mom, girlfriend or sister. She said that "she" also has a beard. Had to get the glasses on for that one I guess. This week we have found success with using a Gospel Art Book. It has pictures of all the Bible and Book of Mormon stories and shows a lot of good visuals. It's perfect to use with the average Guyanese. We took it to a less active member's house and they brought a friend over. Sister Gampat (The less active member) saw 

us open up and talk about prophets. Me: Who was the first prophet? (Picture of Adam and Eve kneeling at an alter) Sis Gampat: (Looking at the picture) THOMAS S. MONSON!

They only know Thomas S. Monson and Joseph Smith. Then we got to a picture of Jesus and she screams out "JESUS!" We showed a picture of Abraham and Issac and the guy there who is a less active Muslim says: Abraham and Ishmael.

I had to tell him it was Issac which felt somewhat weird. We dropped him later that week because he knows he needs to change but he won't. This week we visited a part member family and taught the kids something good and then the dad starts walking home as drunk as a skunk and the kids were a bit embarrassed that they had to go help their dad walk to the house. This makes me glad that I have righteous parents who don't drink or disobey God's commandments. I love my parents for being such a good example to me. I would hate to have to help my Dad get into the house from being too drunk. We also ran into a teenager who was in a van ride with us and he was a bit rowdy because he was drinking his second beer and he started to talk disrespectfully about women. Elder Palavi being pretty big especially to a small Indian punk teenager had him shut up pretty quick. The teenager said his father was a pastor for a church. He sure didn't act like a pastor's son either. He thought Ephesians was in the Old Testament. I remember when I was a teenager. Well good news is that Elder Dearing who is one of my two MTC companions is coming to Guyana but to Georgetown side! My other companion is a Zone Leader in Georgetown. I am going to meet up with them on my birthday in Georgetown so it will be so fun! Elder Dearing will be in my first area called Diamond. I hope I get to serve there before I come home! Well lastly it's sad that we are getting contention in the branch. Someone was offended because their kid didn't get a cookie and I guess it was faults on both ends. Everyone here just wants to argue so we are here to help there be peace. We have a baptism this Saturday for Elizabeth! She is the lady in the middle of the picture. She isn't too smart but she sure is a great lady and we hope having a baptism unifies the branch a little more. Working hard out here with lots of ground to cover. That's Guyana though. Big big areas.