The Mergenthaler Family

From Emily January 20: We asked our cool young friend tony what his bracelet means and the title of this email was his answer. It didnt look like the other voodoo stuff I have seen, so it caught us off guard. Voodoo is sketch people. Always remember to wear your protective bracelets. This week we...... -almost died because i was really sick but the elders brought this whack juice and it literally healed me. Cant explain how. Prayer works though because I told Heavenly Father we had too many lessons the next day and I couldnt afford to be sick and boom genezen. I was super grateful for that. -found a super cool girl named exantha. We actually gave her a Book of Mormon a few months back and went to follow up. We finally got a lesson. When we were asking her who god is for her, she goes "You know, I want to know who he is better. I dont really know right now." That touched me a ton because her humble answer of I dont know led to a super spiritual lesson. Humility is really the d...

Recently, a school teacher called because one of my children had behaved unkindly toward a fellow student. The incident was bad enough that the other child left class crying and requested to be removed from their reading group. I'm not naive. I know that my children aren't perfect, but still, I was shocked. I thought I had taught him better. My first reaction was reinforced when his teacher (who I love, by the way) said, "*** hasn't behaved like this before, and it surprised me. Is there anything going on at home that might have set him off?" I responded. "No, nothing out of the ordinary here. I'm sorry you saw that side of him at school." I joked, "Usually he only treats his siblings that way." That sounded bad, so I backtracked and said, "Trust me when I say, that kind of behavior is not allowed at home." After the call, I felt sad that another child had a bad day at school and my son was a part of that. I felt like a bad mom....

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 ...

Merry Christmas from Zuster Mergenthaler: Wow so much has happened and it was an awesome Christmas week. One of the best christmases of my life. I am so grateful the Savior was born. Now the streets of suriname are all smoky because people go crazy setting off fireworks. I dont have time to update, but I wanted to share this super cool story that happened yesterday: We were going out to contact and we were just gonna go on the gongrijpstraat but when we went over the bridge of iniquity I had a very distinct picture in my head of this building where we used to teach the portugese dude addicted to ecstasy (haha did I tell you about him? Anyways....) so we head over there because I know this is from the spirit. Then when we get there, I feel like we should contact the street behind it. At the end of the street was an old investigator who was SUPER ELECT but told us to stop coming. We contacted the whole street up to her house but didnt really find anyone cool. I was a little dissapointed,...

Hallo iedereen! Another wonderful week in Suriname. It's rainy season and we just biked an hour to our Zone Activity, but it started raining halfway through, so we got a little damp and now we smell like our favorite kind of dogs: Surinamese dogs! I'm sitting here trying not to smell myself while I write this email lol. Lekker eh. Some stuff that happened this week..... --We set up a booth in front of the church for people to grab a cookie and pamphlet/book of mormon. We were practically chasing people down while caroling at them haha. We met some really prepared people, which was so cool. I told one guy we have another testament of Jesus Christ and he goes, "No shoot!" yessir! We also had a crazy guy try to punch some of the elders and there was almost a fight, but he couldn't really touch them. He was like lunging but couldn't. I know what was stopping him was the power of God cause God protects his missionaries.  --taught this suuuper elect jamaican woman n...

I am in the middle of a winter sign-up storm, and I'm afraid I might not make it out safely. Sign-up Genius is a huge blessing of convenience for event planners.  I have used it myself when in charge of gathering volunteers to help with activities.  It's a great way to let people know how they can help--even better, they can look through an organized list of items to give or times to serve and choose an option that works for them. How great is that? Here's the problem, though--this time of year everybody needs help with everything.  The month of December is packed with parties, school and church events, service activities, winter sports, and more.  The accumulation of small sign-ups here and there has grown into a full-blown storm and I am overwhelmed. I should have heeded the storm warnings broadcast in school newsletters, social media, and church announcements. The holiday season is upon us! Are you ready for Christmas? How will you share your gifts this ...

Two weeks of missionary emails: December 2, 2019 — This is a light you FEEL It was Justin's birthday this week, so we walked all the way to his house to give him our homemade cake and talked to everyone on the way that wasn't looking at our cake too hungrily haha. Anyways, we were sharing about Light the World and he goes, "This is a light that you feel" and just grins this big Justin-grin. I love that man to death. It's so true! The light of Christ is especially strong in Decemeber and you really can feel it. And it wasn't the only light we felt this week.....it is BLAZING hot out here....I don't think I've sweated so much in my life haha. Definitely feeling that Christmas Suriname sun. But it's so worth it and this week was awesome. Every drop of our sweat payed off. Some stuff that happened last week/this week.... --went to the farthest part of our area and met some Surinamese hillbillies out in the way back boonies. More goats than teeth. Robby...