Well,
I'm still on the run. I've been official illegal in Suriname for a full week now. According to the Zone Leaders though the papers are on the way right now. So hopefully this week we'll get this all straightened out. I did have a member tell me though that they won't deport me because they'd have to buy a plane ticket home for me and they are too cheap to do that. I hope that is true. If I have to go to the prison though, another member told me that it is so corrupt that I can buy my way to the top of the food chain. I guess they will assume that I'm white and American and because of that I have a lot of money. I don't think it is likely or really possible but if it happens be prepared to donate to my cigarette smuggling company okay? I think we will hollow out Books of Mormon and place the cigarettes in there.. I think it is a good idea.
Other then that it has been a pretty good week. I got the opportunity to speak in church again. I love doing that. I spoke on a scripture from Alma 5 38-39 I think where Alma talks about the sheep of the lords fold hear his voice and respond. I likened this unto the branch and how we can help our brothers and sisters respond to the call of the Shepard. Everyone really seemed to like it.
Sorry this is short it will be longer next week I promise. I promise.
Met Liefde,
Monday, January 24, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
29th week
Well,
I guess its another week. So I better write another letter...
I'm currently on the run as an illegal alien in a third world dutch
speaking country. By on the run, I mean that I'm wearing a white shirt
and tie, on a bike, talking to people with a horrible American accent,
and I'm white in a predominantly non-white country. So not really
running per se but more of sticking out. Luckily for me, the computer
has not been around in Suriname for a long time so they don't know I'm
illegal most likely. Oh well. I guess the paperwork got to SLC on
Thursday and they would have got it all set for me, but someone here
took a paper out of the package at the last second. Which means an
incomplete paperwork set got sent. So we sent the new paper on Friday.
Should be in America on Tuesday, not sure if that means Utah or Miami.
Other then that, I just wait and do legal things so I don't get picked
up.
I've received a few question about food so I thought I'd mention a few
people. Currently we have only one member that will feed us with any
sort of regularity, by that I mean every time we come over. His name
is Benjamin and he is a big hunter. By big I mean he goes out every
night if he can. The funny thing here is that he won't eat his own
kill. If he kills it and cleans it he won't eat it. Instead he saves
it for the Elders and gives it to us. Does that make sense? No, but do
we like it? Yes. So far at his house we've had pig, chicken, fish,
alligator, and haas. I don't know how haas translates but it is like a
giant rabbit. I mean really big. He is currently looking for a boomkip
for me (Iguana) and he says if he finds one he'll shoot it and then
cook it for me. I'm pretty excited about that. Hopefully soon..
Hopefully soon...
Other then that we are currently working with a few different
investigators. David, a brother of a member who has fried himself on
drugs. Progressing the most problem is he only speaks Sranantongo. I
don't speak that yet so I just do a lot of listening. Sharon and
Sandy, both are kind of plateauing. We need to do a better job of
keeping them progressing but that means they need to come to church,
the eternal problem. Yolanda, a 65 year old creole woman who again
really only speaks Sranantongo. She is fun because even Elder Van
Meeteren can't understand her most of the time. Those are our main
investigators.
Everything is going mainly well. I'm on the search for a new bigger
bike so hopefully that will come to fruition but other then that all
is well. I love you all and I can't wait to hear from you!
Elder Nathan John Nielson
I guess its another week. So I better write another letter...
I'm currently on the run as an illegal alien in a third world dutch
speaking country. By on the run, I mean that I'm wearing a white shirt
and tie, on a bike, talking to people with a horrible American accent,
and I'm white in a predominantly non-white country. So not really
running per se but more of sticking out. Luckily for me, the computer
has not been around in Suriname for a long time so they don't know I'm
illegal most likely. Oh well. I guess the paperwork got to SLC on
Thursday and they would have got it all set for me, but someone here
took a paper out of the package at the last second. Which means an
incomplete paperwork set got sent. So we sent the new paper on Friday.
Should be in America on Tuesday, not sure if that means Utah or Miami.
Other then that, I just wait and do legal things so I don't get picked
up.
I've received a few question about food so I thought I'd mention a few
people. Currently we have only one member that will feed us with any
sort of regularity, by that I mean every time we come over. His name
is Benjamin and he is a big hunter. By big I mean he goes out every
night if he can. The funny thing here is that he won't eat his own
kill. If he kills it and cleans it he won't eat it. Instead he saves
it for the Elders and gives it to us. Does that make sense? No, but do
we like it? Yes. So far at his house we've had pig, chicken, fish,
alligator, and haas. I don't know how haas translates but it is like a
giant rabbit. I mean really big. He is currently looking for a boomkip
for me (Iguana) and he says if he finds one he'll shoot it and then
cook it for me. I'm pretty excited about that. Hopefully soon..
Hopefully soon...
Other then that we are currently working with a few different
investigators. David, a brother of a member who has fried himself on
drugs. Progressing the most problem is he only speaks Sranantongo. I
don't speak that yet so I just do a lot of listening. Sharon and
Sandy, both are kind of plateauing. We need to do a better job of
keeping them progressing but that means they need to come to church,
the eternal problem. Yolanda, a 65 year old creole woman who again
really only speaks Sranantongo. She is fun because even Elder Van
Meeteren can't understand her most of the time. Those are our main
investigators.
Everything is going mainly well. I'm on the search for a new bigger
bike so hopefully that will come to fruition but other then that all
is well. I love you all and I can't wait to hear from you!
Elder Nathan John Nielson
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
28 th Week
It has been a crazy and hectic week to be sure. We've been super busy rushing to appointment to appointment. Great example is that we had to rush about 5 kilometers to get to impromptu appointment. We did it in 20 minutes. I was pretty pleased about that especially because it seemed not matter which way we turned the wind was in our face. The stupid wind always seems to be in our face but maybe thats because we go so fast?
Here is your visa update. We apparently needed one more paper, that we didn't know about, and so I completed that last Wednesday for the most part. Only problem is that I needed to do finger printing on the form. Normally wouldn't be a problem but the question is will they accept Suriname finger printing? We shall see. The greatest difficulty with the finger printing is that Suriname's police don't do it unless you've been arrested. So we had to have a member who is on the police force arrange it for us. That wasn't completed until Friday. They then decided to give the paper work to the President of the mission to take him to Trinidad and fedex it from there. So he got the paperwork and took it with him to Trinidad today. Hopefully it'll get sent in the mail today but I've got a feeling it won't be out in the mail til tomorrow. So the paperwork has to get to Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City. Get walked/mailed to the police there and then returned by walking/mailing and then the form can be faxed to us. My visa expires on the 16th but the visa offices are closed on the 15th and 16th because it is the weekend. So it really has to be back before the 14th at about 3pm. My gut tells me it won't be. In that case I think they'll be bringing me to Trinidad to wait out my papers arriving and then send me back to get a new visa. I honestly have no idea though. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
This last Saturday we had a Zone Conference with President and the Assistants and also the Elders from French Guiana. It was really good very spiritual and uplifting and really encouraged me to do a better job to be a better missionary. We talked a lot about finding which seems to be a weak point for me so hopefully I can no apply what I learned and do better. I guess that is always the test in the end. I'm really loving the work and I don't want to be anywhere else right now, but I would prefer it a bit colder.
Here is your visa update. We apparently needed one more paper, that we didn't know about, and so I completed that last Wednesday for the most part. Only problem is that I needed to do finger printing on the form. Normally wouldn't be a problem but the question is will they accept Suriname finger printing? We shall see. The greatest difficulty with the finger printing is that Suriname's police don't do it unless you've been arrested. So we had to have a member who is on the police force arrange it for us. That wasn't completed until Friday. They then decided to give the paper work to the President of the mission to take him to Trinidad and fedex it from there. So he got the paperwork and took it with him to Trinidad today. Hopefully it'll get sent in the mail today but I've got a feeling it won't be out in the mail til tomorrow. So the paperwork has to get to Church Headquarters in Salt Lake City. Get walked/mailed to the police there and then returned by walking/mailing and then the form can be faxed to us. My visa expires on the 16th but the visa offices are closed on the 15th and 16th because it is the weekend. So it really has to be back before the 14th at about 3pm. My gut tells me it won't be. In that case I think they'll be bringing me to Trinidad to wait out my papers arriving and then send me back to get a new visa. I honestly have no idea though. So I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
This last Saturday we had a Zone Conference with President and the Assistants and also the Elders from French Guiana. It was really good very spiritual and uplifting and really encouraged me to do a better job to be a better missionary. We talked a lot about finding which seems to be a weak point for me so hopefully I can no apply what I learned and do better. I guess that is always the test in the end. I'm really loving the work and I don't want to be anywhere else right now, but I would prefer it a bit colder.
Monday, January 3, 2011
27th Week
Hello Family,
Once again I neglected this email to the last and so I don't know if I have room for everything but I'll try my best.
First on Wednesday, we got to play the "black" market as Elder Jansen calls it. For money here in Suriname the church gives us 315 USD. When we pull it out of the bank ATMS though generally we get a conversion rate at 2.7 or so. That isn't too bad but our senior couple the Jansens discovered that the Cambio's(Free Market money exchangers) will actually give an exchange rate anywhere between 3 to 3.5. So they decided that they'd get us all together, we'd all withdraw our money is USD and then take it to the cambios to see how much we could get from it. It was a wild success and while we normally get 840 SRD this time we got 1057 SRD. Not too bad. The only problem with it is that it took four hours to finally get it all done! That's a lot of time for just 200 more SRD. I don't know if it was worth it but I won't lie I like the extra money.
New Years
So Surinamers take New Years to be pretty serious.. I should have realized that when all the fireworks stores were still open after Christmas. By the way when I say fireworks I don't mean like sparklers I mean the stuff that only firemen/professionals are allowed to have and operate. So what happened is that as missionaries we were required to all be in at 6pm that night in order to protect ourselves. Then the leaders pick us up and when went to the Jansens for dinner and a bit of entertainment before going to the Zone Leaders and watching "Despicable Me" (I really like that one by the way and it is worth a watch if you have time). After that we played games until midnight when we went out to watch the fireworks. Saying this though the rolling thunder that was the fireworks continued to build and build till midnight. At 10pm it was just a constant blur of sound outsides. At midnight the skies were alight with fireworks. There was soo much smoke that you couldn't see down the street. You could only see the brightest points of fireworks in the sky. It was incredible. It literally felt like we were in the middle of a war zone with the sounds and the lights. It was like the USA was practicing on invading Suriname. After the fireworks we played a few more games and finally got asleep at 3am. Only to have to get back up at 6:30am. Might not have been our smartest idea to stay up so late. Oh well what can you do right? :P After that it was a normal work day and away we went. Hopefully that makes a bit of sense I'm not sure if it did. In short, Fireworks crazy, movie good, time with other Elders good too.
Really quick because I'm out of time, can I have you all pray for my paper work to go through this week? My visa expires on the 16th of January and this a bit of paper work problems. I'd rather not be illegal in Suriname if you know what I mean. Prayers would be great.
Gotta Go,
Love you all
Elder Nathan John Nielson
Once again I neglected this email to the last and so I don't know if I have room for everything but I'll try my best.
First on Wednesday, we got to play the "black" market as Elder Jansen calls it. For money here in Suriname the church gives us 315 USD. When we pull it out of the bank ATMS though generally we get a conversion rate at 2.7 or so. That isn't too bad but our senior couple the Jansens discovered that the Cambio's(Free Market money exchangers) will actually give an exchange rate anywhere between 3 to 3.5. So they decided that they'd get us all together, we'd all withdraw our money is USD and then take it to the cambios to see how much we could get from it. It was a wild success and while we normally get 840 SRD this time we got 1057 SRD. Not too bad. The only problem with it is that it took four hours to finally get it all done! That's a lot of time for just 200 more SRD. I don't know if it was worth it but I won't lie I like the extra money.
New Years
So Surinamers take New Years to be pretty serious.. I should have realized that when all the fireworks stores were still open after Christmas. By the way when I say fireworks I don't mean like sparklers I mean the stuff that only firemen/professionals are allowed to have and operate. So what happened is that as missionaries we were required to all be in at 6pm that night in order to protect ourselves. Then the leaders pick us up and when went to the Jansens for dinner and a bit of entertainment before going to the Zone Leaders and watching "Despicable Me" (I really like that one by the way and it is worth a watch if you have time). After that we played games until midnight when we went out to watch the fireworks. Saying this though the rolling thunder that was the fireworks continued to build and build till midnight. At 10pm it was just a constant blur of sound outsides. At midnight the skies were alight with fireworks. There was soo much smoke that you couldn't see down the street. You could only see the brightest points of fireworks in the sky. It was incredible. It literally felt like we were in the middle of a war zone with the sounds and the lights. It was like the USA was practicing on invading Suriname. After the fireworks we played a few more games and finally got asleep at 3am. Only to have to get back up at 6:30am. Might not have been our smartest idea to stay up so late. Oh well what can you do right? :P After that it was a normal work day and away we went. Hopefully that makes a bit of sense I'm not sure if it did. In short, Fireworks crazy, movie good, time with other Elders good too.
Really quick because I'm out of time, can I have you all pray for my paper work to go through this week? My visa expires on the 16th of January and this a bit of paper work problems. I'd rather not be illegal in Suriname if you know what I mean. Prayers would be great.
Gotta Go,
Love you all
Elder Nathan John Nielson
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