Sunday, September 7, 2008

I still make paper boats to represent Nephi's boat!

Last week we received two letters from Jonathan and I am finally putting them on the blog.

Jonathan sent some Guyanesse money for his collection so Shane scanned them. Just in case you are wondering, the thousands of Guyanesse dollars in this picture are worth only $22.25 in U.S. dollars! Jonathan said "I would send some of the coins too but I can't find any good ones. Then again, no one uses them because they are only 1 and 5 dollars. (1/2 and 2 1/2 U.S. cents respectively)"


"So you guys want to hear about some of my more interesting experiences huh? Well, let's see... 1) I almost got bit by a dog.
I jumped really fast and it only caught my pant leg. That was close!
2) I had potato and belangi curry on Tuesday (belangi is eggplant).
A couple hours after eating it, I threw it all up on the side of the road. I wiped my mouth off and we continued on our way!
3) I went on a trade-off with Elder Mundy in Rose Hall. It was fun to meet new people and see how else missionary work can be done."

"I'm not sure what other types of experiences you want me to write about. I could write about the 3 green tree frogs that live in our 48 degree shower. I had one jump on my leg this morning! Stupid thing!"

"I have a funny story for you. We have a kid who was suppose to come to Church yesterday so he could get baptized on Saturday. He chose not to come and he suffered the consequences. While he was hanging out with his friends, he broke his foot! Now I think he realizes that he shouldn't have skipped church!"

"Tell my primary class they need to listen and learn as much as possible. Being a missionary is hard work and people question everything you say. I use the same exact stuff out here that I taught them in class. I hope they learned as much from it as I did."
(I still make paper boats to represent Nephi's boat!)
"At the MTC I had to have a couple of scriptures from both the Bible and the Book of Mormon for every lesson. Here in Guyana though, we teach like we are talking to 11 or 12 year olds. We teach things so simply."

We told Jonathan that Michael is learning to play a few hymns after hearing that he is playing the organ at church. Michael has been a little resistant because he already plays the saxophone.

"Tell Michael not to worry about learning to play the piano yet. He still has a long time and I'll help him when I come home. The excuse of knowing how to play one instrument is pretty lame. I can play the guitar but I have to play the piano. There will be no saxophones at church, but we've passed a few Assemblies of God that were really rockin'! Their guitar players were terrible."

"Elder Hamilton is a pretty nice guy. We are both strange in the fact that we are both sports nuts and we love music. "We're like two trippy peas in a far out pod man." (Scooby Doo Movie) It's fun because we both like a lot of the same bands so we will just sing away while we walk down the road, he even loves Disney movies. He was a pretty good trainer. There are some things I will do differently once we're separated. We get along well most of the time but there are moments where I would love to cross-check him! The one major difference between us is that he loves Federer and I love Nadal!"

Jonathan also sent a chart that outlines what he does each day.

Monday, September 1, 2008

The 999th person baptized in the Canje District!

Today we received several pictures from Jonathan. He said, "Sorry I haven't sent pictures the last couple weeks. There have been some computer problems... So here are the last 3 weeks worth."

This is a picture of Jonathan studying and playing around with the settings on his camera.

Jonathan and Elder Williams (Assistant to the President) a couple of weeks ago during their trip to Georgetown.

Jonathan with Elder Williams (who was Elder Hamilton's trainer) and
Elder Hamilton (who has been Jonathan's trainer).

Jonathan's first attempt at making pizza since being in Guyana.
I guess working at Little Caesars paid off!

Jonathan has being trying to cook a few new things.
This is chili with homemade tortillas.

"I was the happiest person in the world yesterday when I made vanilla pudding!!!"

"This is me with Jacko the monkey. He is a crazy little animal. I finally understand why parents call their children monkeys."

"This is a picture of our baptism this week. His name is Manmohan Praymey. (Praymey for short. Pronounced pray-me) He was the 999th person baptized in the Canje District."

"Today, it is hot, humid and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Perfect weather to go surfing...but I can' do that! :)

Well, my companion and I set a record last week (for our area). We taught 43 lessons! Our transfer total was 205! That is also a record for our area.

I get a new comp this week. I can't wait because I get to retrain him to be a Guyana Elder. He has been in Trinidad for his whole mission and it's totally different up there than it is here. I hope he can handle it! His name is Elder Averet. That's all I know about him at this point.
I'll let you know more next week.

I have one good story I forgot to tell you from last week. We had a wicked thunderstorm come in and our apartment got struck by lightning!!! Elder Hamilton screamed, our light bulb blew up and my fan started on fire!!! It was so cool."

The scripture of the week is D&C 58:26-28.

We received 2 letters from Jonathan over the week end and will add another post dated before this one. So be sure to check back in a day or so.