He's so Punny!

Hey all you goofy goobers! Today was the first week of new transfers. Elder Cooper is the officially new district leader so he does nightly phone calls, he has allowed me to do "Elder Hardy's Pun of the Day" I tell him a pun and he relates it back to the other missionaries! With how this last week was on money (I was just about out) I was surviving on peanut butter, water and bread. So I made a pun about it, "With all of this peanut butter I've been eating, you could say I'm going nuts!" Little things like that! We finally have sisters in our district and they've taken back Munder, after Elder Whetten's departure Elder Lewis has been moved to Paramaribo South which means he gets the area of Munder but not the name (weird, I know) of the area itself. We got an investigator to commit to baptism with a date! The only hard part is meeting with him since he's always busy! But we got a Guyanese woman to come with us, she's pretty funny and loves talking! Today for our P-day activity we played 4 square at the church. We set up the 4 square with drawings in each of the squares, the "King" square was the Celestial Kingdom, the "Queen" was the Terrestial Kingdom and the third was the Telestial Kingdom, the last spot was Earth! It was pretty fun it also got kind of intense it that we all got super good at keeping it good! Eventually we played "No hands" which involved us using our body but not our hands, I got good at using my head and my sound effects I would make during it would disorient my competition by forcing them to laugh! In all it was a great time, although the bike ride was pretty long! We also played basketball a bit but the real fun was in the square! That's all for this week, lobi!

Elder Hardy

P.S. New address to mail packages to Suriname

Ferm Cargo, Inc.

1345 NW 98th CT unit 10

Doral, FL 33172-2780

Put the address above on the top of the box and on the side of the box put address below as shown

Attn: for an LDS missionary

Elder Cameron Hardy
Telephone# 597-898-0647

PO Box 2932

Paramaribo, Suriname

South America

Koi Pond at a members house

Elder "Doll Face" Hardy

Suriname tot 'thuis, alles is klaar! We got transfer calls on Saturday, right before a lesson! Elder Cooper and I are staying in the same area and he's becoming the new District leader so that means I don't have to do nightly phone calls anymore! This week was Elder Mercier and Elder Whetton's last week on their mission before they "Die" so I had the chance to go to Koewarasan (pronounced Corusant but without the T, think of Star Wars!) It was pretty fun riding with Elder Jennings but boy was it a big area, I did so heel veel miles but I was pretty thankful for the chance to see South Zone finally! In Koewarasan there's a Sister Hilla who tells all the missionaries what their faces look like; Elder Bowen and James look like Cold toads, Elder Jennings looks like Diego from Ice Age and I have a cute face like a doll, or a doll face if you will, better than a cold toad! It turns out that the new missionaries that were being trained are going to be held back in the States for a bit while they're visas go through, I'm currently here on a tourist visa (90 days) so hopefully I myself can get a visa before that expires, otherwise I'll have to leave Suriname, go to Guyana and come back! Today will be my last P-day with our dying Elder Whetton, so in celebration we're going to Popeyes and we'll be playing board games! Pretty good way to end a mission if I do say so myself! When I was in Koewarasan I had a chance to see "Meet the Mormons" while eating a snickers I got from Elder Jennings, it felt pretty cool to just relax for once! This week we also had a contacting "blitz" it basically is when all the missionaries in both zones head to Paramaribo and set up in different areas, I was at the church, and we just talk to people about the gospel. It was pretty cool and fun, we also had a chance to meet with a lot of people who were genuinely interested in our message!

Lobi! 

Elder Hardy

Welcome to jungle!

Welcome to jungle, where the missionaries go to play! Or in our case hike, swing on vines and get soaked by a waterfall! Yes I know, it sounds awesome! Hopefully none of this sounds prideful but I'm just surprised that I had a chance to do that! In Suriname part of it is jungle so I had the chance to go to the Binna lands which is a more jungle part of Suriname south of Paramaribo. It was a long drive there but it was well worth the drive! To get to the part of the Binna lands that we wanted to go, Brownsberg, we had to drive through some pretty crazy terrain. We took the "Bakkara Bus", missionary van through some stuff that made me think we were going to have to push soon! This week we also had the chance to go to a baptism for a family of converts which was really cool to be at, there were a ton of people! The whole family had such strong testimonies and it was awesome being able to say I knew the missionaries who are out here with me doing the good work! I'm getting better at understanding but I still talk kind of funny but I learned a new tactic; whenever people laugh at me because of my Dutch, I just smile! It usually makes them want to help me learn more so as long as I "whistle while I work" I should be fine! Too bad I never learned how to whistle but the analogy is still there! Fijne dag mensen!

Elder Hardy

Companion Swaps and We Got Photos!

Suriname feels like it's trying to cook me alive! The sun bears down and the sweat just makes it worse plus the humidity doesn't help my situation! This week we had companion swaps with the District Leader Elder Carpenter, he's a really cool guy and I had the chance to go to his area. It's another area of Paramaribo but it's more of the central of the city as well as the part more to port. When I was on swaps with him I could see quite a lot of ships being loaded with shipping containers. It was awesome going to that area, I like the layout of it a lot more, partly because it's the crazy city that I love! On the same day of swaps, we had correlation where we spoke with the Ward Mission Leader, Brother Jubiatana is pretty cool, he has fairly long dreads and his son Angelo is pretty cool. I got to meet with a family called the Vrooms, the mother's children have all been baptized but because she wasn't married yet she couldn't be baptized. On the day I went with Elder Carpenter I got to hear her story about what she's been through, her immense desire to be baptized, her love of the church and gospel and how she is finally getting married, she's set to get baptized a little bit after her marriage date about October 8. Here in Suriname we don't knock on doors, we yell klop klop at the beginning of the property and hope they hear but we klop at homes with the doors/ windows open. People here are really friendly, a common thing to do to someone who passes by is give them a thumbs up! So that's always nice, I've also given a lot of high-fives while biking to kids, they're just like "Awesome, I got a high five from a Bakkara!" But in Dutch of course. I love biking here but my bike is not loved! I've had my third binna-band get deflated so we had to change it again, but I think we finally got the problem down, so hopefully no more inner tube problems! But I guess only time will tell. Today for P-day we had a sports day with South Zone as well. It was awesome being able to play with them, we played soccer and it was really fun playing with/against them. Since North Zone is bigger two of our own had to play for the South so it was a bit confusing at first but it got better! Pictured below are Elder Prestera Angelo and I at correlation.

Lobi!

Elder Hardy

Not sure what most of the photos are from. He just loaded them to dropbox this week and didn't have time to write explanations. I guess that'll be for the slide show when he returns home.

MTC Dutchie Family

Elder Prestera

Elder Cooper, Cam's companion

Elder Prestera