Zone Conference!!!

Zone Conference!!! This week was interesting but on a mission most of them are! My bike has been having problems with the tire and I've been surviving by the grace of God (and a slow leak). I was able to finally fix the tire today but it was not fun, Dutch bikes are more complicated than American ones and all the gears are in the back, where the flat was. But it's all taken care of for the time being! This week at zone conference I had to the chance to meet with all of the missionaries again, from both North and South zone! I got the chance to see Sister Ashcraft again and my entire family from the MTC were reunited! Elder Martinez of the Seventy and his wife spoke to us as well as President Egbert and his wife. It was pretty cool listening to them and I also got to listen to them the following Sunday. After zone conference we got pizza which was actually pretty good, it was awesome to have the chance to eat good tasting pizza! Way better than the pizza I had in Trinidad, that was pretty much cardboard covered in grease! Today for our p-day activity we played games with our zone, it was pretty much just hacky sack and werewolf! Werewolf was a little bit different than what I usually played with roles being a bit different i.e. (Witch, Hunter, Peeping Tom and Seer) But it was pretty awesome to play with them! I won most of the time even though they thought I was too new to do well! Haha but it was fun, it turns out I can still hacky sack pretty well even though I was in dress shoes. I had the chance to hear talks given in English and translated into Dutch, it was a strange but cool experience, hearing them say it in English and then kind of understanding what they said in Dutch! Make sure to eat pizza in my honor!

P.S. Sorry! I forgot my card reader! We were so busy trying to get my bike tire all fixed and planning the rest of our p-day that I forgot to grab it! D: It's been raining here quite a lot so I would appreciate socks that keep out moisture, a rain coat, polyester ties are always cool, saddle bags maybe? American food that transports is always good! Chocolate is able to be sent but I'll pretty much just have to throw it in the freezer. Trader Joes stuff is always welcome! Pictures of you guys would be nice too (sorry about the lack of this week, we both forgot our card readers) As well as anything thing else you think I might need with your mom intuition! Love ya!

Lobi Doei!

Elder Hardy

Soaked, chased by wild dog and having fun at the zoo!

Fawaka mi Broeders and Zusters! This week has been interesting, I've been soaked twice, kicked a wild dog while biking, got a wicked tan from all the biking I've been doing, learned that I block soccer balls like no one else, they have a zoo here and my bike is a menace to other bikes! With the last part (long story short) we were being chased by a dog and when I was focusing on him my companion decided to turn and stop to scare him off but I looked back and saw him turning so I didn't have time to stop. It's okay though, he has another bike! We've had a lot of appointments fall through so we've been running back and forth a lot with the hopes that we'll be able to find someone who A. Won't cancel and B. Someone who wants to learn. We did some tracting and met a couple of new people who accepted a pamphlet about the gospel and a BvM. So that's always cool! Today we went to the Zoo and it was pretty cool, lot of animals and it was weird, they even had pigeons in a giant cage, there were pigeons cooing at the pigeons on the outside! Thanks to all the biking in the rain and all of the junk that's been launched at me, none of my white shirts are white anymore but my shoes are becoming white, need to fix that. This week we also went back to back days of where we got soaked, good thing my shoes were able to dry. Two days ago we were teaching an Investigator named Gerson, we on his patio with him facing us towards his house and us facing him and the street. As we were teaching him I heard a Baaah, I looked over at the street and saw a herd of goats just casually walking down the road! It had all types of goats, small ones, big ones, ones with great big horns and baby ones! Also, when it was raining on us pretty hard we took cover across the way from a member's house (she wasn't there) but her kids were, we hiding under a shack made of sheet metal with a little outcropping, we were making faces at one of her kids when eventually he flipped me off! He knew what he was doing, he looked around and ran after he did it! Earlier in the week we were biking when we stopped at a stop sign and there was a pretty rambunctious car full of women, they were a little bit behind us so a little while later they drove past us and cat called, it was a really weird experience. Well that's it for this week all, when you're going through your week just remember, it's probably raining in Suriname!

Lobi Dooi!

Elder

Trip to the Zoo on P-Day with Elder Cooper

Picture Time!

A few photos I borrowed from his companions blog. Shilea Cooper, Cameron's new companions mom, contacted me the other day to inform me how to send letters and packages to Cam. It was great talking to another mom who had a son in the same place as our boy. Her son, Cole, has been out for one year, so they are pros at sending packages. The good news is she said every package she has mailed has reached her boy. Call me if you need instructions how to send a package. We could even go in on the shipping if you want to send something together. Another tip she gave me was to try to find his mission companions blogs because sometimes they post different photos than what we are sent. So below are a few photos I found. It's so nice to know her boy is happy, safe, and loving the Suriname area. Her son even said a few things about Cam that he really likes Elder Hardy already. Cam said the same thing about her son-- That is great they get along so well! 

Missionary Monday - First area from Paramaribo, Suriname

Hey all you kiddies! Finally out in the field and I can definitely feel the difference. My first week being official started with having to wake up pretty early in the morning. We made it to SLC Airport pretty early. After getting situated with all of our plans we were able to make on our flight to Houston than Trinidad. After I got to Trinidad I was able to talk to a woman as we were all walking to the next terminal. She asked us about who we all were (since we were all dressed up nice) and I explained to her, pretty cool to start it off! We then flew to Trinidad and were able to make it the mission home, it was pretty nice! President and Sister Egbert are really awesome! Sister Egbert even fixed some problems with my bag. The humidity in Trinidad was pretty bad but it's worse here in Suriname! The flight from Trinidad to Suriname was about an hour so it was pretty nice, I split the front of my pants during customs so that was awkward! On the plane I had my BvM (boek van mormon) sticking out and I was talking to this one flight attendant from Holland but lived in Suriname, she was really cool and had tons of faith and after talking with her I gave her it with some commitments and my testimony on the inside, we also got her information! My first few days here were pretty interesting, I almost crashed my bike a couple days ago thanks to a car that came a little close and a puddle that went down pretty far (there are tons of holes in the roads here) also, my inner tube "Binnenband" got popped. We were pretty far from the Rez so we had to walk for about an hour to get there but we managed to talk to a Brother Simon and a guy named Roy who talked to us about my sad situation but hey, we gave him a BvM so that's cool! It's been raining a lot today even though it's the dry season but it never stops raining here in Suriname! I also learned my first day that all of the W's in Dutch are pronounced like a W, sounds easy but when you've been conditioned to make a V sound, it's annoying. The accent plus the speed at which they talk is certainly interesting. Sorry about the long email, fijne dag!  

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Goede Morgen! Mom & Dad, I miss you a bunch but this place is pretty awesome! My first day in Suriname was technically a night since we flew in, I also gave out my first book of mormon on the flight into Suriname to a flight attendant from Holland who lived in Suriname (hopefully aunt ma doesn't mind) When we got to Suriname we were greeted by a bunch of missionaries who wanted to meet us, quite a few Elders and a couple Sisters. They were really cool and one of them is an Elder by the name of Van De Herik which I thought was cool. We first flew out of Trinidad and spent a couple of days there just doing little, nothing very productive. I tried this pizza from mario's...Trinidad isn't very good at pizza! Suriname is so cool (hot) I think the only time I haven't sweated is when there is a fan on me and even then... My first actual day was cool, I have a pretty awesome bike and it was awesome riding through the country. It started on a on a Thursday so we did daily planning so that was for a while and then we met with an investigator. We had just gotten off our bikes and inside her house when it started pouring like nuts! It was super hard to understand her with the accent and speed she had but I kind of managed, I could talk to her about Joseph Smith though. Yesterday I introduced myself during sacrament and I corrected myself up there (they laughed a bit but that's okay) but it was fine, I've given up saying how I'm from Colorado and Las Vegas so now I just say Las Vegas since you live there now! I miss America! The culture here is so different, even Mcdonalds is expensive! I finally got the chance to get my mission funds and the money is really cool, they got rid of things like pennies so everything just goes in intervals of 5, plus they don't have tax on things, the price you see is the price you pay. My third day was hard near the end because my bike is really high up, even for me, so I have to sit near the edge of the seat to extend my legs fully while pedaling. This makes for some uncomfortable numbness. Earlier in the day while we had just started going through the city, I had the prompting to start singing, having questioned this for a total of one second, I bursted out into song, more specifically "Called to Serve" Later on in the day when I was having back pain, hunger pains and numbness, I prayed for a little bit of help while riding. I remembered me singing called to serve and how happy I was when I did it, the memory got a song in my head and energy in my back, then we got some snacks and I felt wayyyy better. This experience has been pretty humbling already and I'm curious as to how this will affect me in the end, one thing I miss already, not having ants everywhere and not seeing a cockroach my first day in the shower! Yep...a cockroach...you had better believe that I kept my eye on him the entire time! It rains here quite a lot but I've stopped caring about getting wet, the amount of sweat I emit makes me have to. Elder Cooper is my first companion here and he's really awesome, he's really good at Dutch and an all around awesome guy, he fixed my bike tire even! Couple of days ago we had pasta with chicken nuggets in sauce as "meatballs" it wasn't bad! My first night here a member's son in law took us and two other groups of Elder's out to eat at a sketchy looking chinese place, also, there are a ton of chinese people here, a lot of signs here have it on as well and it seems as if all the winkels (shops) here seem to be run by them, they pretty much only know Taki Taki and Chinese but money is a good enough language for people. I have so many bug bites it feels as if I have a target painted on me! Hopefully I'll get used to the bites soon! I've also named my bike Holy Roller (I need to learn how to translate roller)! My first day I met a man named Georgio, his legs don't work but he's pretty funny, when we were leaving and he was going through a space in the cars he went through earlier he said, "Sorry Elders, it seems in the space of our meeting I've gotten fatter" he likes to say funny stuff that if you don't catch and call him on it, he won't even act like anything happened. For beld:"I'm sorry, it's my fault" "Yes, yes, it is your fault"

Well I love you so very much, I'm currently sending this via an internet cafe (computers in a mall that we have to pay time for) Also, feel free to post this on the blog if you want! Love you lots,

Elder Hardy

Flight to Trinidad

MTC District landed in Trinidad

McDonald's in Suriname

Missionary Culinary Creations (Chicken nuggets, sauce and Pasta)

Cam's first mission companion - Elder Cooper. 

Where in the World is Paramaribo, Suriname?

Thought it would be fun to post where Cameron is currently serving for the next 12 weeks.

Paramaribo (Dutch pronunciation: [ˌpaːraːˈmaːriboː], nickname: Par′bo) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 240,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's population. 

Learn more about Paramaribo click here