The Mergenthaler Family

This is the last email we received from Emily way back in March 23. I got busy and forgot to add it to the blog. She arrived home three days later after an all-nighter in the Miami airport. Big news guys : I am coming home and will b e released upon my return because I've served for 17 months. I'm not exactly sure when I will get to the US because we haven't found any flights. We have been in quarantine since last Wednesday (hence my becoming suddenly active on Facebook since it's one of the only ways we can do missionary work now).    It's been a really emotional week. My heart feels broken, but I know that feeling will fade with time. What won't fade is my love for Suriname and Bonaire: the people I have met and come to love, the culture, the missionaries, my mission president and wife, all of it. I am beyond grateful to have had the opportunity to serve the Lord in theTrinidad Port of Spain mission. My gratitude has often brought me to tears these past couple...

Boredom creates space for creativity. At least, that's the idea that came to me about two months ago, long before COVID-19 forced our family into a boredom experiment. Some of our children were spending a lot of time on their devices. I worried the hours they spent passively partaking in entertainment through screens would limit their progress academically, socially, physically, and spiritually. I wanted to try a screen time lockdown for an hour or two each day, hoping that when they weren't being fed entertainment, they'd purposefully seek out good things to do. I like this scripture: "Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.  And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward." (D&C 58:27-28) The word, "anxiously" stands out right away. Is anybody else feel...

Did you know that Easter Egg hunts are symbolic?   Easter is a religious holiday meant to celebrate the Savior’s Atonement and Resurrection. Much of what we do to celebrate helps us remember the Savior if we choose to learn about an focus on those symbols. We didn’t do an Easter egg hunt this year. Leaving candy in plastic eggs in the desert makes a big, melty mess. And even if we wanted to hide eggs in the backyard, we have a loyal golden retriever who would “find” every egg. Besides that, with rattlesnakes out and about, I don’t like the idea of my children looking under rocks or around the shady bases of trees for treasure. But the Easter bunny did hide their Easter baskets this year. Each child had a different experience finding their basket. As the kids went around the house searching for their baskets the story of the Resurrection came to mind: On the dawn of the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and other women set out for the tomb where the body of Jesus had been laid....

I wanted family pictures of our family dressed in our Sunday best on Easter, but this is what I got: I know we will regret not taking our pictures, but I didn’t have the energy to fight for it considering how much I fight daily to get nine people together for prayer, scriptures, meals, chores, and school work. You know that scripture, “How oft have I gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings?” I’m wondering, why a hen? Because I am doing so much gathering that I have that hen beat out ten fold.  Here’s a different family picture from last week: Our family participated with two other families in a “Welcome Home Missionaries” parade at our church. We all wore Surinamese dresses or “pongi’s,” and waved at ward members as they drove by in their cars, waving welcome signs and shouting greetings. It was pretty cute. A family driving by was nice enough to send us a picture with Rick in it.  That’s the closest thing we have for a family pict...

When toilet paper and water bottles began disappearing from store shelves a month ago, I thought it was funny. I laughed at some of the jokes. I even bought a little extra for my own family because, you know, what if? But then school closures, event cancellations, and pleas for people to "just stay home" reached my social media feeds and I got nervous. I did some research. I prayed and pondered and thought hard about how I should react to the current situation as a mother, wife, daughter, neighbor, and disciple of Jesus Christ. The jokes weren't funny anymore because I recognized the fear and anxiety behind the behaviors. People were scared. And seeing empty store shelves made me a little scared too. So, we told our children we would be staying home--no friends, no play dates, no social interactions of any kind. And a couple of our children were not happy. When we told them we would not be going out they HAD to get out. Suddenly, they wanted to be out of the house more ...

From Emily on March 16. I disagree with her title but am trying not to worry too much.  I have never been to Suriname nor lived there. I'll trust her mission president's intuition and revelation for guiding the missionaries he has stewardship over. He is clearly more aware of the circumstances there than I am. Here's her email: Hey friends! Hoe gaat het? First of all, if you are worried about me/missionaries in my region, don't be. We are probably the safest out of everyone in the world right now. I live in a jungle that most of the world doesn't know about, so I'd say we are good. It was a good week. Kinda crazy, but much crazier everywhere else in the world. I'm praying for you guys! The Corona virus got to Suriname this week, but they immediately quarantined the dude (he was a Nederlander). School is out and stores are closing, but we got a good food storage going and the trusty guy at the banana stand on the corner isn't scared, so we'll defini...

No email from Emily on March 2, but here’s the one from the week before with lots of pics: Hey guys! here are some pictures. This week was great. We were really really bold....so by the end of the week, we had dropped half of our investigators. Br. Mateda isn't getting baptized anymore. We had a scary experience with that, but we are all good now. Suriname is whack sometimes I'll just tell ya that. We found 6 new investigators and a really cool less-active family that's been to the temple and makes really good Roti. A mom tried to sell me to her son for marriage (there's a better way to say that in English but I don't remember how to). Here's a couple cool experiences: We were heading out to do what we call "talk to everyone you see until you get to your destination" which is a fun game we like to play when we have some time before a lesson. So we were biking when we saw a lady smoking outside. We stopped to talk to her and learned she was a visitor fr...