My Prayers are Answered! 4/13/2015

Dear family,

WOW! So much has changed. I am officially with Sister Christiansen! Life is aweeeesome! We are both so ready to flood Wanica with the water of baptism. It's cheesy but it's true. We have had the best time together and are already seeing success.

Wednesday was exchange day. We saw Faizel that day and had a really good lesson. He says he knows the BOM is true. He says that he has prayed to God and he knows. Whenever he is having a hard day he reads from the BOM and feels better. It was exciting. There is still potential there but he didn't come to church on Sunday. We have to get him there! But still, he's coming back to life.

We helped decorate the church that night for a wedding the next day. There was a family in the church. The kids were baptized but the parents were not because they weren't married. But the Elder's worked hard and they agreed to get married so they could get baptized. They were so cute and excited. The wedding was on Thursday night. I attached a pic of me singing with the choir for the wedding. The wedding dress and colors was another story. The wedding was a great time. Like I always say, the members here are the best! 

Wedding Day

Friday and Saturday were great days of missionary work. We had good lessons and got to visit some members. It just feels like a blur but I know that it was good. We saw Mohan and agreed to work on his divorce but it turns out that Mala doesn't want to marry Mohan because she gets money from the Government for being a single mom. Grrrrrrrreat. Haha. We will see. It will give us some time to really find out if he is legit. 

We followed up with that one contact Shanifa that we found when the AP's were shadowing us. She is really cool and we both see some good potential there. This week we are going to be talking to a lot of people and search for the ripe people of Suriname. 

My new companion, Sister Christiansen
We are so excited to serve together!

Church was good! Funny story Sister C told me was she was sitting in between all these little girls in sacrament meeting. They were playing with this rose (probably left over from the wedding) and in the middle was this bud of fabric type thing. One of the little girls starts pulling out this fabric in the middle. It's like this string. All of a sudden one of the little girls holds up this string in front of her and Sis C realizes that she's holding up this red lingerie thong!!!! I wish I saw this but I was sitting somewhere else. Sis C said it was so funny. The girls were just wondering what it was and Sis C told the girl to put it down and started rolling it back up. I thought that was so funny!

Oh man it's going to be a great transfer. We are trying as a zone to get 7 baptisms and I think we can do it! It's exciting. It's just going to be awesome. It feels too good to be true honestly.

Love you all! 

My last picture with Sister Johnson.
I will miss her!  We became very close.

Love,

Elizabeth

Missionaries.....Unite! 4/6/2015

WOW!

I can't believe my parents are serving the Lord! It was so fun to read the letter! Haha, you guys are going to be great! I agree with Sam. I had no idea where I was for like a week! I later realized a house (I don't know how we got there) was just down the street. It all starts working together once your internal GPS starts working. When it comes to getting adjusted to a whole new culture...like has been said before just love the people. When I start to love the people I love the place that is home to them. Tell me about all the crazy things every week! And don't worry about filling anyone else's place. The Lord put YOU there for a reason so just be yourself.

First mom, before you worry- my package came! I don't have it with me yet because it is in the North Zone but I'll get it in the next couple days. TRANSFERS are tomorrow. Sister Christiansen is coming to Wanica! I'm so thrilled. We are both super excited to work together and work our butts off. We have a ton of work to do but I'm thrilled to do it. It's going to be awesome. I'm working for miracles this transfer.

This weekend was General Conference! I loved it! We get to have kind of a missionary weekend because Tamengha is a little far where we watch it and it ends late so we sleep over there. Man where to begin. I have to agree with Stephen on Elder Holland's talk. I was so scared and started crying too haha. It was a powerful testimony of the Saviour. I also loved Sister Burton's talk about men. All the Elders were saying, "I think that's the first women's talk I really liked." I was thinking no duh, it's because she is praising men the whole time haha. But it really was a great talk. I also loved the metaphor about hearing the music. I was thinking about how sometimes in the world we are dancing/living the gospel and the people look at you like you're the weird one but it's only because they don't hear the music! 

I had 5 questions going into General Conference and all were answered. How can you make sure you are living up to God's potential for you? How can I come to a better understanding of Christ's atonement? How can I prepare now to be a better wife and mother? How can I make the most of my mission? How can I see miracles?

The work last week was very slow and then we were shadowing the Zone Leaders on Friday and gone for the weekend so we didn't see a lot of people. Honestly I don't have anything to report on investigators (thumbs down) #noemojis.

This week is my 6 month mark and it's been crazy to look back. I have gone through so much already and I'm prepared to see what else Heavenly Father has planned for me because he's done a lot in just 6 months! 

I love you all so much! I love hearing from you all! Keep being awesome!

Love,

Elizabeth

Sight Seeing 3/30/2015

Dear Family,

Can't believe mom and dad are taking off! You will be the best missionaries! I remember my time in the MTC since it was so fast was just such a roller coaster and emotional. I cried more in the MTC than ever on my mission. The spirit is so strong and you just feel this change coming on. It's pretty cool! I've heard of Elder Jex here! That's cool you met him! 

Well, we had quite the week! The work went well this week. I have to start with a funny story. Sister Johnson and I went to visit a 91 year old man in our branch named Brother Leim. He is amazing. Lives all alone, can see, hear, walk. Do it all! Plus, he's just hilarious. We see him about every week. So last weekend he got surgery. He had this sore cleaned out. He was saying how he is in pain. I said, "Where is your pain?" He stands up and pulls down his pants and in my face points to his bum. Haha I almost died of laughter but of course hid it from him. Every time he turned away I laughed more. He's such a character. 

Wednesday the AP's shadowed us. We only had them for a couple of hours so we set up solid appointments. One was with Mohan. Show up and he's completely distraught and drunk. His "wife" Mala is in the hospital. She has some sort of surgery on her stomach and I think she is now in a coma. I've called him on the phone and he just cries. We tried stopping by and checking on him but he hasn't been home. Hopefully he's ok. After that appt falling through we realized the other Elders took our next appointment teaching with them. I talked to this one guy on our way to the back up. He was Hindu so we asked if he knew any Christians. He gave us a name. We went and checked it out and we ended up having an awesome lesson with this girl named Shanifa. We will go back to her for sure! After that the Sabayo family fell through too so we met with some members. It wasn't quite the night I imagined but it worked out.

Friday we went to Kwareson to shadow our district leader Elder Alpeter and his comp Elder Prosman. We had a great time there! At the end of the night we went to the branch president out there's house to make donuts. I think he sent you pictures in facebook message mom! Check! He's the best! I love him and his wife. 

Sunday we had interviews with President Mehr. First I have to explain the President Mehr is going home and there will be two brand new mission presidents. Also I asked him why he chose me to come to Suriname before he even knew me. He said I just looked at pictures and your little bio. Then make logical choices as in more mature and blah blah and the spirit does the rest. He told me that I have a great amount of faith and that people see me as a strength here. The big news is the Sister Christensen is most likely coming to Wanica for next transfer. I'm more than thrilled. The work will take off! Sister Johnson seems really excited to work with Sister Walsh and go back to her new area. All is good! 

So excited for General conference. We get to sleepover with the other sisters since sessions are at 1 and 5. It'll be an amazing weekend! 

I don't have much to report on investigators only that no one came to church. Faizel is doing alright...not knowing if we are seeing progression. We had a good talk with Ernesto but I don't know if he's quite into it still. 

These are our landlords.  They are awesome!

My Dutch is cominnnnng. Kinda. Haha. Some days I'm like wow I can kinda speak this language and other days nothing comes. But my thoughts are turning to Dutch a bit and I know it's coming. It's pretty interesting. I love Suriname!

Some Ritvield Sisters

Also I got the Vineyard Ward Letters! Haha!  Kaeli, please tell them that I loved them.  They all sound like great ladies!  Also, got Sam and Kaeli's Valentine's card.  No package yet, but I'm sure I'll get it this week!  I'm so excited!

Love you all!

Love,

Elizabeth