The Mergenthaler Family

Zuster Merg's Weekly: Title comes from the one and only, the hilarious, the elect: John, who is getting baptized in October (fingers crossed).  This week was good, kinda hard, and fun. All around the spectrum. I try not to sugarcoat things, so I'm just gonna give you all of it! Some stuff that happened.... --had Zone Conference and got PUMPED about missionary work. I want to be better at seeking and fulfilling the Lord's vision for my day. Every morning, we plan our day out knowing that things won't go according to plan. But the more I've been on my mission, the more I've realized that is just God using us to fulfill his vision for the day. He has a work he needs us to do, but we have to answer the prompting of the Holy Ghost to find out what it is.  --we learned we will get the senior couple car when the Vermeerens leave to travel back and forth every week between our two areas. Normally I'd be really excited because that means we are more efficie...

Emily's September 16 email: Hey guys! Sorry for not emailing last week! And I have approxiamately a fart and a half to email today (my new saying haha) but lets see how fast I can type... --had SUCH a spiritual lesson with Abdel about how Christ has the power to change us. He struggles with alcohol addiction. He was in tears and goes, "I promise you guys you and my family are going to see a better man in me." And he and his wife came to church Sunday :) yaaaay --got trapped in the mall with one of our investigators for like an hour. he was freaking out. Sorry, Silas. I wish I could send videos to show you, but it was hilarious. the elders almost had to come get us out, but security dude saved the day. --teaching this ELECT dude who has taught me so much about the Plan of Salvation. His name is Clive and he's from Jamaica. GUYS. this life is not the end, or the beginnning. it's just a tiny speck on the span of eternity. mind blown. we each have an ama...

Rick and I killed our first rattlesnake last Sunday. As I was telling the story, to Emily during our video chat, I discovered Rick’s version of events to be very different from mine. I guess fear and adrenaline can skew perceptions. I’ll try to relay events with a little bit of both our stories. Winter, our faithful golden retriever, was hunting for lizards out by the pool when I called her to the porch for dinner. She usually runs like a thoroughbred back to the house when I present her food, but this time she froze in her tracks. I called her a second time, and she responded by very attentively barking at the bushes. Beneath the sound of her snake bark, I heard rattling. Uh oh. I called her up to the porch and she quickly obeyed. This was weird because she usually doesn’t back down from prey. Maybe her rattlesnake training finally kicked in. Maybe she remembered how I yelled at her for throwing the quail around a few days earlier or my firm "no" when she bit a tarantu...

Many people have asked about how Emily is doing since her accident. Thank you for praying for her and for the man on the motorcycle, Jason. Unfortunately, we don't have information on Jason's recovery.  Emily was transferred to Suriname less than a week after the accident.  Her communication with the branch president and zusters in Bonaire is limited, but if they had news for Emily, they would share it. Even without closure, healing is happening, but it's going to take time. Emily has nightmares and is nervous about driving again. Right now, driving is not a problem because she is a biking missionary.  She's also very busy. She and two other zusters in her companionship are covering two areas. They move from one apartment in one area to another apartment in the other area every week, so they can alternate their focus on investigators every other week. Since it's about an hour and a half on bike from one area to the other, the senior missionaries drive them fro...

From Zuster Merg: I realized after emailing last week that I never sent a weekly...oops. But, hey, I'm in Suriname! Woooohooo. I love it here. I'm in a trio with my best friends, Zus. Orchard and McGuire. We are over two areas 1.5 hr bike ride apart right now, but gaat goed. When the plane touched down and I saw the jungle and all the random starving dogs and old houses and pee-water trenches and smelled the humidity I knew I had just come home. Feels good. We have had some awesome experiences, taught some elect-out-of-your-mind people and gotten a lot of cat calls. I forgot about how bad the cat calling was here. Literally every 2 minutes. I told Zus Mac that I was going to start carrying a spray bottle in my bag and every time I heard "Hey hot thang" I was gonna unleash my secret weapon....but no, gotta be Christlike. But I've been doing a lot of praying for Christlike love for drunk men on the bike. Some of the awesome stuff that have happened..... --translat...

Zuster Mergenthaler was in a serious car accident last night. She and her companion are not injured, but a man on a motorcycle was thrown off his bike and rushed to the hospital by ambulance. We aren't sure about the details except that Emily was driving and she is very worried for this man.When we talked this morning, she didn't know much about his injuries or prognosis except that he had feeling in his arms and legs and had been conscious. He was transferred to a hospital in Colombia for better care.  So, right now, things are not okay with Zuster Mergenthaler. As we talked with her this morning, as I pondered and prayed during sacrament meeting, and as I have talked with Rick about what we can do at this distance to comfort and help her, I have felt over and over that things will be okay even if they're not. This is not an unfamiliar feeling to me. This past year, Andrew struggled with some health challenges. The lymph nodes in his neck were very swollen and h...

Zuster Mergenthaler’s most recent email: Hey guys! Hope ya'll had a great week. I think the adjective for my week would be "heet". Some stuff..... --my wonderful companion threw a surprise birthday party for me with the members. wow, I wanted to cry! Zr. T and the Bonaire members are officially the best. We had arroz morro, danced to bachata, and played pool. And Vaquero gave me a teddy bear for my birthday present. Imagine this 60 year-old rough and tough Dominican man with a teddy bear in his hands. Sweetest thing ever, right? yes, yes it was. --played soccer with Richard and the youth. I was on exchanges with Zr. Meyer and dang she's good at soccer! All of Richard's friends were amazed haha. And Juni, our favorite burrito making boy came! He told me the Book of Mormon is "not his thing" which broke my heart a little, but it's ok just not his time yet. --it was Pablo's birthday on Friday, so I was making cake and the oven blew up in my face and...