Emily’s New Year email is below. Maybe you have noticed with other emails that I don’t take time to adjust the formatting or edit. You get the same version we get. I like it because it shows how tricky technology is there.
Whats uppppp friends and family! It was another great week. I realize I've been awful at sending emails of substance lately and you all are probably missing my hilarious sense of humor, so get ready for a good one because this week was straight up funny. Some stuff:
--in Suriname, we have what we call old year and new year (new years eve and day). Everyone lights up about every firework they can get their hands on in their front yard. There's basically nonstop fireworks for two days and it's AWESOME. Sounds like a war zone, which it probably could be because Suriname's president got arrested for murder a couple weeks ago so yaaay. We are pretty accustomed to noises at night though (thank you to the neighbor's cats who mate at weird hours), so we actually slept through new years.
--made a parody to the song "find me somebody to love" called "find me somebody to teach" I'm debating whether I should send it or not because this thing could go viral and I don't want that much media attention, but we will see. Really channeled our inner Anne Hathaway.
--cleaned a dear sister's room on new years. It was the first time I've scooped molding stuff and maggots of the floor with a plastic bag over my hand, so that was an experience. Then her roommate came in and was like "you better just leave that there" in sranan tongo to me. I almost got into a fight because you cannot leave you roommate living in filth (this sister can't walk). grrrrrrrr.
--We had a breakthrough lesson with Jose on Friday afternoon. We felt to talk about baptism and confirmation with him. A quarter of the way through, he interrupts us and is like, "why did you guys pick this topic?" we explain to him that every morning we pray before planning our lessons to know what God would have us teach and we felt the spirit guide us to this topic. Then he went on a long rant about how he still doesn't know very much doctrine about our church, he's only in 1 Ne 20 of the Book of Mormon, and he doesn't understand why people with no religious education speak in church. We read Moroni 10:3-5 with him and asked him what the three requirements were for obtaining knowledge from God. He replied sincere heart, desire, and faith in Christ. We asked him if he had these things. He replied yes to each one. We then testified about how God gives knowledge to the weak if they follow his requirements. Then the spirit opened his mind and he remembered how before he met us, he always thought the Catholic church was right because he felt something when the pater prayed for him that he didn't feel when the dominee prayed for him in the volheid evangelie church. BUT when he met us "two angels" at his doorstep, the feeling was different and stronger. ahhhhhhh. With tears streaming down my cheeks I told him about how we were led to his street that day and weren't gonna talk to him because he was on the phone, but felt like we should anyways, so we turned around. The spirit was so strong! He then ghosted us for two days and wasn't at church, so we are preparing for a spiritual whipping in our lesson today haha but he's making progress and it's amazing.
So yeah, those were some highlights! My new years theme is "no excuses", inspired by the workout videos I got from my parents haha. Last year, my theme was "Selflessness" and I feel like I have grown a lot in that respect. It is so cool to look back and see all the ways Heavenly Father helped me reach that goal and look outside of myself in times where it would've been very easy to be selfish. I was praying about what I can work on this year and realized I have a weakness of making excuses for myself. I do not want to get home from my mission and let this weakness keep me from being just as spiritually strong as I have grown to be here. So, HAPPY 2020 EVERYONE!!!!! It's gonna be a great year. Love you guys!
Zr. Mergenthaler
P.S. I got doo rags for christmas white elephant, so that explains that pic (yes I do use it every night to keep my waves)
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