Monday, February 29, 2016

Bluh!

As of this week I have been out for 8 months! That means my missionary baby is almost about to be delivered (not an actual baby of course). This week has been another exciting in week in good ole' Suriname, wan moi kondre! So back to Nam; this week we were able to meet with a Sister H, she's from Guyana and is less-active, hadn't been to church in a while but she came to church this week! Elder Lewis was saying how if we could just sit with her she'd go to church, he was right! She said she liked the good feelings we brought as we taught. One time an investigator was telling us how much she loved having the missionaries over because she could feel the room change and things seemed to get brighter! This week we played sports with the Elder's Quorum, it was pretty fun (Surinamese people play dirty) so as we were playing basketball the ground was kind of slippery from a water dirt combo and was slippery like ice. Elder Lewis was over there and slipped and banged his head on the ground, he came up pretty fast but the goose egg on his head was pretty big! We got some ice for it and he was good, he's all healed up now! I'm excited to finally get my hair cut, it's starting to evolve from your average lawn bush to Harry Potter magical maze! Side note, the branch president's daughter likes to call me Elder Longbottom, after Nevil Longbottom, it'd be funny if I could get a name tag with Elder Longbottom on it! On Friday we headed over to Rainville so Elder Lewis could give the Sisters' investigator a baptismal interview. While he was doing that I was following along with the sisters' lesson with an investigator in the family. At one point Sister Walsh asked me to join in and Sister Jorgensen asked me to talk more about prayer. It felt weird teaching with sister missionaries, fun though! They taught a pretty good lesson, they thought it was funny how I related my experience, like I was watching "the district" (missionary training videos, pretty much).
Sunday was heel leuk omdat een van onze onderzoekers, "Kolif" was daar! Hij was ook daar de geheel tijd! Harold(tje) was heel belangrijk met de situatie omdat hij had hem gevraagd om te blijven! Het was heel leuk, na kerk, wij hadden met hem gesproken en hij had gezegd dat hij wilt meer vaak te komen! I hoop dat hij zal dat doen!
Zo dat is alles voor dit week broeders en zusters, van daag ik will met twee leuk versen die ik had gevonden! Het is Het Boek van Mormon in Ether 12:6-7
6 En nu wil ik, Moroni, iets zeggen over die dingen; ik wil de wereld tonen dat geloof datgene is waarop men hoopt maar dat men niet ziet; daarom, betwist niet omdat gij niet ziet, want gij ontvangt geen getuigenis dan na de beproeving van uw geloof.
 7 Want het was door geloof dat Christus Zich aan onze vaderen toonde nadat Hij uit de doden was opgestaan; en Hij toonde Zich pas aan hen nadat zij geloof in Hem hadden; daarom moeten sommigen van hen wel geloof in Hem hebben gehad, want Hij toonde Zich niet aan de wereld.

In English: 

6 And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith.

7 For it was by faith that Christ showed himself unto our fathers, after he had risen from the dead; and he showed not himself unto them until after they had faith in him; wherefore, it must needs be that some had faith in him, for he showed himself not unto the world.
  
Hope you all have a good week!

Lobi,

Elder Hardy
Elders Quorum Sports Night



Monday, February 22, 2016

News From Your Foreign Elder

Hey guys and gals it's time for news from your foreign Elder. This week has been interesting, we've been trying to teach as many people as possible and boy has it been fun (and tiring) one thing is for sure, the more people we talk to the more I feel like I'm getting a hang on this Dutch Missionary thing! Ironically enough one of my favorite people to teach is Guyanese (he speaks English). The most exciting thing this week to happen was when I went on exchanges with Elder Prosman; it was quite the day. We started off having to wait in the truck for 4 hours while we were waiting for the landlord to get there. We spent the time talking about video games, the gospel, movies and Dungeons and Dragons; fun time. We then went to KFC before we headed to pick up some floor plans from the Sisters in Bologna, Sister Vernes drew pictures on the truck since it was pretty dirty. Afterwards we went to the cyber to upload said floor plans and also looked at some apartments for Paramaribo South, then we went out and worked! Senior Couple stuff is certainly interesting. This week has been interesting since Elder Lewis' zika has been flaring up again so I've spent some time just messing around in the apartment doing a lot of reading and watching a bunch of Mormon Messages, very inspiring! Today we went to Overbridge and it was a lot of fun, we got soaked by the rain during volleyball and I accidentally kept kahmayhamayha-ing the ball (Dragon Ball Z reference) it was a reflex I swear! I'm excited to go grocery shopping today because our fridge is looking pretty empty but that's about to change!

Lobi,

Elder Hardy

                  P-Day at Overbridge with all the missionaries today playing beach volleyball in the rain.





Monday, February 15, 2016

Trip to Trinidad, Foodie and Silliness....

Hey Brothers and Sisters it's time for another weekly update from one of the Hardyiest Elders you probably know. I'll start it off  with a funny story, on Wednesday I was on exchanges with Elder Hood after some rain we took off our raincoats, we got to our appointment but she wasn't answering her phone. So Elder Hood taught me that my coat was collapsible in the form of starting an impromptu game of volleyball. So this went back and forth for a minute when after a mis-hit on my end, it went over the fence of our would-be investigator. After surveying the scene, there was conclusive evidence that I was going to have to climb the wall; the gate was locked, she wasn't answering and my arms are not even close to being long enough. Also to add into this mix were two dogs, at first they were very interested in my coat (it still smells a bit like dog slobber) I climbed the wall muttering to myself "Man I'm stupid" with a mixture of "This looks bad". I grabbed my coat when I heard the dogs barking at me, so I threw my coat over and I wasn't too far behind! Moral of the story, do not play volleyball with a raincoat. I was on/over the wall for about 5 seconds but those dogs made it feel longer! Moving on; I was also in Trinidad for a couple of days. We got up at about 2:30 am and headed to the airport at 3:00 am. After our flight landed we were in the airport for a while (I learned Canadians love Trinidad) then the AP's picked us up. It certainly felt weird being in a place where you look outside and you know for sure that the person you see knows English! We ended up proselyting with the office Elders; Elder Ulloa Garcia and Carrillo, from Honduras and Ecuador so we were the go to guys for questions about English, it was weird. At one point we ended up splitting up so I went with Elder Carrillo to go contact while Elder Christianson went with Elder Garcia to go teach with a member named Enrique. We ended up teaching a guy right there and it was weird, I kept having to change words in my head to English! We then switched the other way and Elder Garcia, Enrique and I were heading to another lesson. As we were in the car Elder Garcia said if it didn't work out "We'd go get doubles" I've heard many stories about this wonderful (mythical for a while) food but I had only a wisp of an idea as to what it actually was! Soo....good....Basically to simplify it, think of special tortillas with curry, chick beans (or something like that) tasty sauce and a sweet hot taste. All the hype was not misplaced! Sure enough the lesson fell through but we contacted the guy's brother. At one point Enrique said "I used to promote parties, now I promote Jesus." Funny guy! The next day I was in the office with Elder Christianson so we helped with paperwork and we got to know Elder and Sister Bevins more! They're pretty comical people. So in all: I ate KFC, Papa John's Pizza, a Double, got a dollar from Trinidad and a tie! We got on our flight to Trinidad and we ended up having to consolidate flights and went to Guyana, then Suriname. Our flight from Trinidad left at 9:10 pm and got to Suriname at 3:00 am! The line for immigration was very long, which is the last thing you want to see at 3 o'clock in the morning but hey, now I'm home! Wan moi kondre! That's all for now, sorry about the long email!

Lobi,

Elder Hardy

Elder Ulloa Garcia and Carrillo, from Honduras and Ecuador, Elder Christianson & I





Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Gong Hay Fat Coy!

Hey all! As you may or may not have noticed this email is coming on a different day. The reason for this is because yesterday was Chinese New Year so almost all of the stores were closed, including all of the cyber cafes (which are just small stores with computers in them) A lot happened this week, we had Zone Conference and District Conference this week with President Egbert, it was pretty awesome! It's always a fun time when he's here. Yesterday we had sports at the church and also played Werewolf, a sister is going to Salt Lake for medical reasons but right now we're not sure if she'll be able to come back or not. I'm heading to Trinidad in 2 days to take care of some visa stuff and then heading back to Suriname so that'll be exciting! I had the chance to teach with one of the Assistants to the President; an Elder Sheen. He's heading home after this transfer so it was his last time in Suriname, on the bright side I got to trade ties with him! It's weird how much I like ties, partially because that's the only thing that let's me switch things up. Other people have watches, shoes, hats, etc. I have ties. Well I don't have too much time today since internet is running very slow! So...het spijt me but I wish you all a wonderful day!

Lobi,
Elder Hardy

Newly constructed bridge that just made life for us way easier in our area!
Little girl who "helped" with service, she mostly just kept bringing us tools we didn't need. Cute though.
Missionaries enjoying the rain!
Elder's Hood, Lewis, Hardy, and Burr, Zuster's Walsh, Jorgensen, Ashcraft and Parker






Monday, February 1, 2016

Houd van elkander! (Love One Another)

This week has been pretty long! Not for any particular reason but it just felt like it! I learned this week how much kids love it when you give them pictures of Jesus! We stopped by this less-active family and these kids kept asking for more photos! (I stopped it at two per child) Another funny kids related story was when we were contacting this lady on the street and she was watching the neighborhood kids and it seemed they all collectively (and individually) decided to mess with me! So I ended up distracting all the kids while Elder Lewis talked with this lady. So I had kids messing with my kickstand, my wheel, bell, shoes and even the bottom of my shoes! This is why I now carry around lots of pictures. Maar, in the end it all worked out, while I had kids treating me like a human jungle gym, Elder Lewis got her info! On Wednesday we ended up having to do a lot of contacting because when things fall through that means contacting en je moet iets in plaats van doet! So we met two separate guys both named Dwain, both on separate occasions and a 17 year old stay at home mom who had sister missionaries teach her which is weird since our area's marked off as being too dangerous but oh well! I was also reminded as to what happens if you have a Jehovah's Witness in a lesson with you...on the bright side, I had a fun time! We were teaching (bear with me) a less active's wife who is a non-member who's sister is a jehovah's witness who wanted to sit in our lesson. As we were teaching we ended up having to direct most of our lesson at her since she kept asking questions contrary to what we were trying to share. She was better than the last one I talked with, she actually gave me a chance to speak! I learned that the best way to react to situations like these is by being very nice! We ended up teaching doctrine still because jw's have certain parts right so the pattern went like this; I'd compliment something she said (about the gospel) comment on what she said and then relate it back to the lesson and teach! It worked fairly well but I could see how much she wanted to just get mad at me but I just kept smiling, being nice and using my young age to my advantage! She ended up giving us a pamphlet so we gave her a Book of Mormon. Testimony strengthening time; last night we were teaching an investigator who's always busy so we don't meet with him too often every week but this time we were able to share the Restoration with him. It was very cool because after Elder Lewis and I shared our testimonies and experiences with the Book of Mormon we asked him if he had any questions, he paused and sat forward in his chair and asked "So what do I have to do to get an answer?" The change in him was pretty cool to see. That's all for now folks! Houd van elkander!

Lobi,

Elder Hardy

New Shipping Info:
Before shipping any packages off for Cam, please contact me first. Still trying to confirm what the new mailing address is. 

This little guy wanted to help us paint during our service project


Elder Hardy at church- photo credit to Zuster Henna Ravie in his ward.

Studying in our new apartment
In honor of my Dad: following in his footsteps making tasty pancakes!
Zuster Missionaries posing with the scriptures in: Portuguese, Dutch and English. The three languages we have to teach here.