The Mergenthaler Family

Of course, I have updates about the rest of us and pictures to share, but I'm having such a hard time keeping up. It's so much easier to peruse the Vermeeren blog for pictures of Emily, copy, and paste.  Most of you have heard by now that missionaries now have permission to make phone calls home on their p-days. What a wonderful blessing for so many missionaries. Unfortunately, our missionary doesn't have access to technology to initiate a video or voice call. She has just over an hour at an internet cafe computer to read and reply to emails, compose an email to her immediate family and her mission president, and write a general email to other family and friends.  She calls the computers at the cafe "dinosaur computers." They don't have a camera for video chats and the speakers don't work for voice. For a few weeks, she has sent us texts through Google hangouts and it's fun to be able to communicate in real-time that way. She does the best she can ...

Hello readers of my email! I hope all is great with you guys. This week was a roller coaster x2! Some things that happened: -A guy brandished his machete at me! I was so scared man. I think he was just joking, but ya never know. I've never pedaled my little bike faster!  -I made a pretty hilarious Dutch mistake. One of our amazing investigators, Mike, hurt his back and has been having "rug pijne" which is back pain. I prayed for his "achter pijne" which is bum pain...oops haha. Heavenly Father was laughing pretty hard at that one. Also Mike is definitely, actually getting married on the 20th and baptized on the 23rd *everyone give it up for MIIIIIKE* so that's awesome. -I contacted someone biking next to them from work all the way to their house (he was on a bike too). Can't try to bike away from Zuster Mergenthaler! Haha, don't worry, he was totally chill with it. Was it against traffic laws? Definitely...if there were traffic laws in ...

Hello everyone! Hoe gaat het met jullie? This week was a little sad, a little joyful, a little stressful, a little rustig. I'm loving it out here in Suriname. Some things that happened were... -I had my first bike crash! It was so funny because I was twisting around to tell Zuster Orchard that I am the bike queen because I've never fallen off...in doing so, I twisted into the mud/rain/pee mix on the side of the road and spoofed it. It was actually in front of a car, so I'm really grateful I wasn't hit because my arm would've come right off haha. It also happened to be in front of a whole group of cat-calling construction workers, who proceeded to laugh and talk in Sranan Tongo at me. BUT this super lief guy came and gave me an old shirt so I wasn't bleeding all over the place.  And I'm a bad missionary because I didn't even give him a pamphlet. So if I ever see that guy again, you better believe he's gonna hear about the gospel, whether he likes i...