Raising the Roof ... Or Not!

Hello once again everyone and hoe gaat het? Hope all is well as usual and that life is going well. I heard that my home ward Concord 2nd is killing it with missionary work so shout out to them! Very exciting to hear and I hope that the ward continues to grow. It is very hard to write ward since they don't exist here! I want to write branch every time. We had a pretty sweet week this week though!

First of all, we got transfer calls on Saturday anddddddddd...... Elder Hood and I are staying together in Paramaribo South! Super excited about that and we're ready to have another amazing transfer filled with many miracles. Hard work, obedience and fun is what it's all about! We're both very excited for this transfer and will hopefully have a bunch of baptisms.

On Tuesday we had a sweet district meeting on the Holy Ghost and were learning about the word Earnest which is super cool! Look it up in the Bible Dictionary if you get a chance because it's very interesting!

Wednesday I went on an exchange with Elder Lewis in his area! That was super fun and we had some really good lessons! I really felt like I was guided by the Spirit and was able to ask inspired questions and it went just really well. Also that afternoon there was a worldwide missionary broadcast which has not happened for like over 10 years! It was super cool and a few apostles spoke at it and really inspired us to be better missionaries. Very good meeting and I learned a lot about more effective teaching and about inviting AND enticing people with the gospel!

A missionary from here in Suriname who was serving in England came back this week and it is Brother and Sister Parabirsing's daughter! She and her father came teaching with us one night and it was pretty funny because she's lost almost all of her Dutch and has an English accent. But she was a great teacher and the family is very excited to have her back. Edmund is progressing very well and he's going to get baptized very soon which I'm SUPER excited for! I've taught him the whole way though and it will be super great to experience his baptism.

The District President, President Verwey came teaching with us this week and he is just an amazing teacher! Super young guy, mid 20's and he's the equivalent of a stake president here and just is an amazing guy. So so spiritual and just a wonderful teacher and I learned a lot from him. We taught members of his wife's family and they all accepted the invitation to be baptized so that was super exciting as well!

One fun experience was in service on Saturday, I was helping take down a roof and replacing it and it was a very very old roof. You can probably guess what happened next and yeah I stepped on a piece of wood and fell though the roof but caught myself by my elbows and was just hanging there. I guess you can say that I failed at "raising the roof." Oops! Pretty funny though and no real damage to me or the roof and now it's just a cool experience! Good stuff.

Shout out to Sister Christiansen who just finished her mission here in Suriname and is going home! She will be missed. Also shout out to Elder Hunt and Elder Dibb who just had a baptism in Uitkijk for a family! We all got to go and it was a very spiritual experience. Families can be together forever and it was so great to see! What a great experience!

Suriname is great and I love it here! I hope you all have a wonderful week! The miracles are real and I love you all!

-- 

~Elder Burr

On the roof that I broke a little bit.

 Elder Hardy and me

Shout out to Sister Jorgenson for the awesome planner that she made for me!

 Last picture before Zuster Christiansen goes home.

 Pictures from this morning since I forgot to take pictures this week!

There's a First Time For Everything!

Hello hello! Fawaka?! This week was yet again awesome and we experienced a ton of success again! Loving missionary work and all of the wonderful experiences that I've had!

I had a crash this week (first one). Pretty intense one. Elder Hood and I were biking super hard since we were probably going to get home late, probably going over 20 miles per hour since we were almost passing cars. And my brake cable got detached and as I pedaled, my pedal hit the cable and immediately stopped my bike and I... didn't. Went flying over my bike and skid for like the next 10 feet from what Elder Hood described. I don't even know what happened since it was so fast. Hit my elbow pretty good and got some road rash on my hand.But I was protected from on high.. No broken bones and a pretty cool story. Ripped my pants though and almost destroyed my shirt. Pretty intense but pretty sweet at the same time. Makes for a good story :)

We found some awesome people (mostly in other people's areas) and just had some great lessons. We're really really pushing the Book of Mormon in this mission and the miracles are showing from it. Daily reading from the scriptures is so important but we need to make sure that every day we read from the Book of Mormon. It truly is the most correct of any book on Earth and the keystone to our religion. We've had some less actives and investigators start reading it and it's been amazing to see the differences in people's lives. We had 6 investigators and 6 less actives from our area at church this week! Miracles all over the place and it's just been super fun! Still working hard and time is flying! Elder Buehler and I went on an exchange and I led out my area for that and it went really well! I was a little nervous but we relied on the Lord, found some awesome people and it just went super well. It's been great to see the improvement in Dutch that there has been and how much I learn each and every day. The gift of tongues is real!

We had an awesome lesson with Edmund this week (2 actually) and man is that guy prepared! Completely stopped smoking and really has fixed his family life. He brought both of his kids to church and tries to make us cry every lesson! He just tells us how we've saved his life and he's so grateful for us and starts tearing up. The Spirit is so strong there and it's amazing to see the changes in people's lives with the gospel. Miracles are real.

So on Wednesday all of the sudden water starts leaking all over the floor when we're doing dishes and it smells TERRIBLE. No clue what it was until we looked under our sink and discovered that our sink has been leaking for who knows how long into a bucket... And the bucket had an interesting mixture that looking like a green tinted water with random forms of life in it. I'll let your imaginations work in that one. Super gross and we still need it fixed... Oh well! No span!

We found some less actives through more miracles and man are they cool! One of them is named Ivan and he came to church on Sunday! He's a super smart kid and he and his sister are members. He has three huge dogs though who slobbered all over me and basically made me drenched in dog slobber. Good stuff though and he's a sweet kid!

We also taught our Elders Quorum president who has started reading from the scriptures every day and the spirit is working in him so strongly. He started crying in the lesson sharing the spiritual experiences that he's had and he's just the best guy ever. I love that guy and he's such a stud. The Book of Mormon makes such a difference in your life from daily reading in it.

We had an awesome week and I hope that all of you have a great week as well! I know that Christ lives and that he loves us and that the Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on Earth. Daily reading it helps each and every one of us no matter who we are. Love you all!

~Elder Burr

 Sludge

 Bike Fixing

 Paramaribo branch missionaries

Elder Hardy, Elder Burr, Sister Jorgensen, Sister Christiansen, Elder Hood, Elder Lewis

 All Suriname sports today!

 My friend Spot

 The results of the bike crash!

Miracles of Fasting!

Hello all you wonderful people! I hope you all had a wonderful week because I sure did!

We had an awesome Family Home Evening with an investigator named Ron who has been struggling with the Word of Wisdom and we had them come to Sister Malene's house for a Family Home Evening! Brother Suraj gave the lesson and man it was just awesome! The member fellowshipping has been awesome and they really support each other and want to do missionary work! That was a good time and they also made us bami! (chow mein) and it was sooo good!

We had another awesome lesson with the Elder's quorum President Marciano on preparing his friends to hear the gospel and how there are angels all around us helping prepare people to listen to and accept the gospel in their lives. The gospel is such a blessing and it changes your life forever! It truly is the way to happiness and it's awesome to see people's lives be changed forever!

Tuesday night I ran over a tack and my bike tube got popped from it so we just left it at the church and assumed that we could fix it very fast on Wednesday... That was the goal, but 3 and a half hours later we finally fixed it. The bikes here are super nice but super complicated. And the problem was in the new tube that we bought all along. Lame!

Later that day though we had a lesson with our investigator named Fiona and she brought a friend! Her name is Simon and she came with a Book of Mormon in the lesson. She was very interested in the lesson and I'm expecting good things from the both of them!

Elder Hood went to Trinidad for MLC for two days with Elder Cornish from the Seventy (jealous) so I led the area out for two days. I did a pretty good job though and we had 12 lessons which was pretty sweet! The cross country in me has made it so that I can figure out where I am at all times from all the street running that I did. In other words I never got lost woot woot! But the Dutch is doing super well and I'm very pleased with the progression of it. Elder Hood says that he feels like he's been with an elder that has been speaking Dutch for a year. I'm pretty sure that's a lie but it was very nice of him to say. But I'm still working super hard on the language and always praying for the gift of tongues and I truly believe that I have been blessed with it. Just been amazing.

Elder Hood and I have so much unity that it's insane. He's an amazing missionary and such an obedient and hard worker and the funniest guy ever. We're just having a blast and I hope we continue to get to serve together. Time has really flown and it's been because of the hard work, obedience and fun I'm sure. That's the secret to a happy mission I feel like! Obedience hard work and fun. Good stuff! We had a miracle with fasting yesterday. (Elder Hood and I made a goal to fast every Sunday and it's really helped). We were fasting for a new progressing investigator that would be ready to receive the gospel and it was answered. We taught a guy for the first time last night who is a less active's father and he has changed his life. He's been smoking for 25 years and stopped completely in the new year and he also made a goal to spend more time with his son and he's doing it. He also told his work that he wasn't going to work on Sunday's because he wants to go to church with his son at our church. He accepted a baptismal date and we're going to try to have his son baptize him which would be AWESOME! Just a huge miracle! 

We're experiencing tons of success and I'm loving Suriname! Things are going great here and I'm super excited for this next week! Love you all!

--

~Elder Burr

 Suriname

 My awesome ward sent some cards

 Sweet calendar

 Elder Buehler quotes

 Sweet outfit

 Sweet face

 Cool map of our area

Parker's eye

Wan Switi Nu Jari!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all had a lot of fun for New Years! Not too much fun but enjoyed the fireworks! New Years here is INSANE! It's seriously like World War 3 is happening. When they sell fireworks here that definitely would be illegal in the States for 25 cents here which is only 5 cents US, you can imagine. We didn't stay up for it because that would be disobedient, but we definitely heard it. And man.... I can only imagine what happened outside. It was seriously insane. Good stuff.

We had an awesome week this week though and I'll do my best to tell about the highlights of it!

Monday night last week we were going by a member's house and this kid throws a dynamite firecracker thing in the trench about 15 feet away from me so I thought I was safe. I seriously misjudged the power of that thing though because the explosion rocked my eardrum and I got hit with something and I thought it was part of the firecracker. Well... it wasn't and I discovered that when Elder Hood started laughing at me and pointing to my neck. Yeah it was part of the trench and a big glob exploded onto my neck and also on my back. And you don't want to know what the trenches here smell like... Man it was so gross but pretty funny at the same time.

We had a great lesson with an investigator that we have named Dian. She's awesome and comes to church every week but has a hard life because her husband died and she's trying to support herself and her daughter. Her situation is pretty hard and in the lesson she was feeling very down because she missed her husband. We were able to testify though that through Jesus Christ and His Atonement, we will all live again and that she will be able to see her husband again. Super strong Spirit and it gave her some hope! In the next lesson, we had her pray in the lesson about the Book of Mormon and she got an answer! Super awesome and she's making great progression.

On Wednesday we went on exchanges and I was with Elder Hardy in my area. I led the area even though I was only there for 2 weeks! Who's idea was that?! But the say actually went really well and the Spirit really helped me in my Dutch and deciding where to go and who to teach. We had a lesson with the Vrooms (who are just an awesome family here) and the Spirit told me to leave a commitment with them to write New Years spiritual resolutions and somehow I got that point across in Dutch. They all got super excited and made the best goals ever and I am super excited for them!

On Thursday we were outside a house that we got a referral for and Elder Hood was on the phone and I attempted to dismount off my bike. The problem was that my shoelace got stuck in my chain... So as I leaned to dismount, my foot was stuck and I just sideplanted right in front of the house we were going to contact. And yeah all of them were in the front porch and saw me. Yeah I'm pretty smooth I know. The worst part was that I was stuck for like the next 5 minutes while Elder Hood was on the phone. Not my best moment but it was a good way to get some laughs from the family.

We actually got a referral from the Netherlands from a missionary that was in the MTC with me! Shoutout to Elder Meister! The referral is family with the district president here and of a missionary that is about to leave! Such a small world and just awesome. She was great and when we taught her we found another awesome guy! Just finding so many people here that are ready for the gospel! It's awesome! 

Man we invited one of our investigators to church on Sunday named Ramie and he has no legs so we were trying to figure out a way to get him to church. And can I just say that the members in the Paramaribo branch are AWESOME! They went out of their way to find someone to pick him up and his wheelchair and then to find a ride home for him as well. The members here are awesome and are just so supportive of missionary work. They are amazing!

We have experience huge successes this week and the work is really going forward! These were some of the highlights and I could've written a bunch more! I hope you all have a great week and continue to grow in the Gospel! You all are amazing!

~Elder Burr

 The aftermath of the firecracker.

 The Suriname flag

 Pictures of their crowded apartment.