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Doop Them All With Priesthood Power

Hallo everyone! Doop=baptism in Dutch. 
It was an awesome week which included....
-4 baptisms! It brought tears to my eyes as I watched them make sacred covenants with their Heavenly Father. It also reminded me of the covenants I have made in my life and how important they are to me. I'm so grateful for these righteous examples of faith to me! I'm so glad I have the opportunity to be a missionary and take a message that has greatly blessed my life to others. 
-A crazy high man that confessed his love to me at our front gate and then peed on our wall. Did I sing really loudly in the shower just in case he came to kidnap us so Sister Woolsey would know? Absolutely. The funniest part is I didn't know he was hitting on me at the beginning because I don't know Dutch, so I was asking him questions about his life to see what he would love about the gospel. It's hilarious now that I look back on it. Fun times. (We are totally safe just so you know. Suriname is pretty sketchy, but the sisters are in the safest part. And there's like two locks on our door.)
-A ton of people interested in our message this week. The first week, I struggled talking to everyone, but this week I committed to Heavenly Father that I would stop and talk to everyone I felt prompted to as long as He gave me the courage to do it. He gave me the courage and poured out the blessings for my tiny efforts. January has great things in store.
-A Zone Christmas party. One of the Elders gave a makeup tutorial. Most informative thing of the week. I've since considered using lipstick as an eyeshadow.
-Some struggling recent converts of the branch, which is really hard to watch. Satan takes every opportunity to fight goodness. But guess what? God is stronger. The first couple weeks of my mission were some of the hardest of my life, but I learned so much about Jesus Christ during that time. I know that as we rely on Heavenly Father, we will find strength.
-Teaching someone this week that has a kind of Satanic worship room in their house. That lesson was pretty uncomfortable. She wrote worship song lyrics all over the walls and sleeps on a picture of Jesus? Little weird, but also the sweetest lady. I don't know what to think about it. She invited us to start a band and church with her. I don't know if she got the whole restored church thing, so we will try to reteach it next week. 

I hope you all have an amazing Christmas! It's such a special time of the year to reflect on how much Jesus Christ did for us. Russel M. Nelson, our prophet, said something super profound about our mission in the Carribbean along the lines of "People here love God so much, but they don't know who He is." I've definitely experienced that this week. People here are so faithful. Everyone has a religion and professes faith in God, but they get confused about who God really is. I'm so grateful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, through which we know that God is our Heavenly Father! He has created a clear path back to Him. I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has this path. 

Merry Christmas!
Zuster Mergenthaler

 1. Me in my fancy raincoat. I promise I have a waist somewhere in there.


2. A man that raised hogs in his front yard. Hogs are gross, just gonna put that out there.



3. One of our new members-Rohan! Such a punk, but also has the sweetest testimony.



4. Zuster Tulaga, Mary, Zuster Woolsey and I 



5. Bianca and Migarfio, my favorite people in the world. They don't like to smile in pictures, but we tried. They are so amazing.



Not pictured: Chubby, our last new member

Eating really good barbeque in celebration of the baptisms.



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