19th Week

First I feel a confession is in order, I stole the subject line from my Father and an email he had sent to me but I think it works nonetheless.

Today is Oktober 25th and we are sitting in an Internet cafe in Paramaribo, Suriname. It has been a long, hot week but it hasn't killed me so hopefully it will make me stronger. I'm not sure what to start with this email so here we go and I hope it doesn't ramble too much.

As you can see I've attached some photos I hope you like them. I believe the first is a giant chicken which was in front of a gas station in Athens Tennessee. It always made me laugh so I thought I'd share it with you. The second is a mini-birthday cake I had on the 12th of Oktober for Dad. The third is one of me taken by some members kids at their house. They really liked the camera so they were playing with it and I don't think it's too bad of a photo. The last is a sunset in Suriname always very beautiful. I tried at least we'll see if this works.

We've put in a lot of bike riding this last week. By a lot, I mean a lot. We probably spend some 60-70% of our time out on our bikes riding around and talking with people and such. There is two reasons for this. First, we actually live outside the bounds of our area so we have a good 20 minute bike ride every morning before we really even starting working and then because we've had a hard time scheduling appointments in such a manner that they are not half way across the area each time. Oh well, what can you do but smile and bear it?

I still don't believe I've ever lived anywhere or been anywhere where it is so stagnate. Nothing changes. The sun sets and rises at the same time every day it is the same temperature every day and so forth. Really the placement of the people sometimes changes and sometimes it rains and sometimes it doesn't but I hear that is just because we aren't in the rainy season yet.I wish I could tell you something about investigators but we currently don't have any we are working with. So sorry about that. We'll have to work harder and I plan to have someone to talk about next week when I send the email. I also don't have any members to talk about but that is mainly because I can't understanding anything they are saying really yet. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't its fun. My favorite was someone who walked up to me one day and just started talking to me. I couldn't really understand them so I kinda of just smiled and nodded and then they asked me a question. So I guessed... I was wrong. Oh well! It comes and goes and I guess I just need to pray harder and work harder... It'll come.

Either way, I love you guys and I'm out of time for the day. Feel free to email me whoever you are, but if you are not direct family I'll have to snail mail you something so don't be disappointed if you don't hear from me for a while I promise I'll write you back so include your address on the email.

From Suriname With Love,

Elder Nathan John Nielson