Christmas

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :)

Haha what a week! Definetly one I will never forget! It all started when me and Zuster king got into a taxi... that wasn't really a Taxi. After driving down some sketchy side roads and in the opposite direction of where we wanted to be. We ended up at an old warehouse but Heavenly Father blessed us and a Bus drove by at just the right moment so that we could hop out of the car, get on the bus and make it safely to the city.

Then that night Zuster King's head was super itchy so I started looking through her hair to see what was the matter. Well it turns out that she had lice. So I then spent the next 3 hours picking through her hair and combed out a bunch of lice eggs... The next morning we turned our apartment upside down cleaning everything to get rid of the lice. Well our apartment doesn't have hot water and you have to wash everything in hot water to remove the lice so we had to boil water on the stove. Then fill up our washing machine for every single load. That took forever...

Well then our washing machine broke after we had only washed less then half of our clothes. So we had to bike our clothes over to a members house and wash there. Well there washing machine was broken too, so then our Zone Leaders came and picked up our clothes in their truck and are washing everything for us. But hey I never got lice and we caught it fast enough before Zuster King had it too bad. So thank you Heavenly Father, it could have been a lot worse.

Well then the next day my arm was itching really bad and it looked kinda weird. There was a big, round thing on it. It didn't look normal. So I called the mission doctor and it turns out that I have Ring Worm... Awesome :) Haha but she told me how to treat it and it's already getting better!

Then we were at the church for a metting with the Elders and the Branch President and after the meeting we got to get on our bikes to ride home. Well we couldn't find Zuster King's bike anywhere... it got stolen. We had even set our bikes inside of the church so they would be safe and some one still stole it. So one of the Elders let her borrow it so we could get home.

This week was one I will never forget. Crazy thing after crazy thing happened and there was a couple times I kinda just wanted to cry because it was really hard. Even though this week was crazy and in the hard moments all I wanted was for it to be over. Looking back there was so much good. We made cookies for all our investigators, less activies and members and we went by and sang christmas songs to them. It was so sweet to see how this little bit of service was able to make them so happy. One of our investigators cried because she was so happy that we thought of her on Christmas.

Yes this week was insane and really hard but so good. I am so happy that I was able to be a missionary at Christmas time, it's the best! Yeah it was different being away from my family and my own traditions. But it was so wonderful at the same time! I was able to really feel christ's love as I served the people around me. And that really is the true spirit of christmas. To love and serve everyone, just like Jesus did. So even if you are having a hard time, and all you want is to cry and feel sorry for yourself. Take one minute to be sad, then get up and go serve some one. I promise it will make everything better!

Well I love you all so much, thanks for all the letters and emails. I hope you had a Merry Christmas. Till next week :)

Met Liefde, 

Zuster Christiansen

Christmas & a Baptism

I hope ya'll are having a Vrolijk Kerst (merry Christmas) and are getting excited for Santa to come this week! I just love Christmas and how happy and giving everyone is this time of year :) And I feel so grateful that I get to be out here in Suriname, serving the Lord and sharing the good news and the real reason for this wonderful Christmas season. It's extra special to be a missionary this time of year. I just feel God's love and how pleased he is that we are celebrating the birth of his son!

The Lord has blessed me like crazy this week, I am so grateful :) Sherijl's son, Vaizel, got baptized this week! He is such an awesome kid. He is way cooler than I was as a 12 year old.... I don't know many boys that age who would take the time to meet with 2 weird missionary girls everyday and then actually listen to them and read the book of mormon every night! He is such a stud. And it was so cute to see how happy he and shreijl were when he was baptized. Sherijl bore her testimony to him just before he was baptized. It was such a special moment to see how the gospel has made her so happy and just how happy she was that Vaizel was following her example. I love them both and seeing them both be baptized and trying to follow Jesus makes me so happy! Those are the kind of things that really matter, and that is the best christmas gift I could have ever gotten :)

Also this week we helped a member build his house. It was so fun! Haha we made LOTS of cement and shoveled dirt and did other house building things... Haha it was really fun and on Christmas we are gonna go over there with him to help lay the tile. We also went around caroling and bringing boxes of food to members of the branch. It was so sweet to see how grateful people were. One man started crying when he saw all the food that we brought. It really touched my heart seeing people who had so little yet they were so grateful for the things they did have. Christmas is just the best! :) 

I hope you all remember the reason for the season and go out and serve someone today! And also have a wonderful Christmas with your families! Love y'all 

Vrolijk Kerst

Zuster C

Rainy Season

It's been a really good, crazy week! Haha but that's how all weeks are as a missionary I guess. We are now in the rainy season here in Suriname so basically everyday it pours down rain. And since I'm on a bike basically that means I'm soaking wet... all the time. No big deal though me and Zr. King rock the drenched in water look :) haha!

 There is a member in our branch, Patricia, who I absolutely love she comes out teaching with us all the time and she had a car so she would pick us up and take us to lessons. It was the best! Well a couple weeks ago she got into a bad car accident and her car got real mashed up. She doesn't have a car anymore so she is stuck at home all day. And she lives pretty far away so we hadn't seen her in a few weeks. So this week we got the feeling we should take the time to bike over and see her and make sure she knows we love her. So right when we started our long bike ride over to her house it started raining, but not super hard so we thought maybe if we biked super hard we would get there fast enough and beat the rain. Well we had never been to her house before so we were going off the directions the elders gave us... Haha long story short we got lost. So we were biking around in circles and it starts dumping rain. Like a crazy amount of rain! Haha so we call Patricia and find out the Elders gave us the wrong street name and we ended up finding her house. She was so happy we had made the time to come see her. She kept saying "You girls really do love me!" With a big smile on her face. After seeing her reaction nothing else mattered. I didn't care that I was soaking wet and freezing or that my legs were all noodley from biking so hard. Haha all that mattered was that we made her day.

That is what missionary work is all about. It's those random moments were you think of others before yourself. It's when you take the time to make sure people around you are happy and that they know you care about them. Missionary work really isn't hard, anyone can do it! Just love and serve the people around you. Remeber to love and serve as Jesus Christ did. Remember the reason for the season and that with out Jesus Christ love for us and His sacrifice we would have nothing. But that all things are possible through Him :)

I love you all so much and I hope you are having a wonderful christmas season! Thanks for all the love and support! Talk to y'all next week :)

Met Liefde, 

Zuster C

P.S. A member dressed me and Zuster king up in traditional african clothing the other night... super cool right? She made the head things out of napkin clothe things. Then we had a service project out in the country this week and those were a group of kids that came and attacked Zr. King and I. Haha all of them wanted to play with my hair... Whats knew? All the little kids here are obsessed with my hair. Love y'all :)

Kinder Dag

Well it was another really good week out here in Suriname with Zuster King. We are working really hard and it's really cool to see how the Lord is blessing us. I just love Suriname so much and all of the people that we are teaching. The lady who was baptized last week, Sherijl, well her son, Faizel, is going to be baptized in 2 weeks. So me and Zuster King are working really hard to get him ready. He is the coolest kid! He is 12 and super smart and really accepting of the gospel. He asks good questions and I can tell the he really wants to find out the truth for himself. I'm just so happy we met them and we are helping to guide their family back to the path of happiness. 

 Oh a cool Holiday that they have here is Kinder Dag (kids day) It's like mother's or fathers day but for kids. Haha it's so awesome. The parents spoil the kids and get them presents.. so basically kids here get 2 Christmas! I think we should start that in the states...  One of the young women in our branch bought me and Zuster king these really cute pearl earrings for kinder dag. It meant so much and made our whole day. The members here really are the best. I feel like they are my second family and they give us so much love. Sometimes I feel like a total goob because I'll just be riding my bike on the side of the road with my super dorky helmeton, just smiling. I am so happy. I have never been so happy in my whole life. I absolutely love being a missionary and the people here that I am serving. It's the best. The gospel just makes me so happy and to see how it can change peoples lives for the better. That is the best feeling. I love it! 

Well that's all I got for y'all today. I hope you have an awesome week and give your families a big hug and tell them you love them. Thanks for all the love. Have the best week! 

Met Liefde

Zuster C

First Baptism

What a week! I had my first baptism :) Sherijl was baptized on Saturday! Looking back it really was a miracle and it's amazing to see her journey to getting baptized. The Lord's hand was in the whole thing! The day that we contacted her she had been looking for a new church for her and her 2 boys so then that next Sunday she came to church and she felt the spirit so strong that she started crying! Then the first time that we met with her she could hardly read and it was really hard for her to pay attention during the lessons but she had a really strong desire to be baptized from the beginning. So me and Zuster King helped teach her to read every lesson from the book of Mormon. And we prayed really hard that the Lord would help her. It was so amazing to see her progress, every time we went over there her reading got better and better and she told us how she had been praying to heavenly father to help her read. Sherijl has more faith than anyone I have ever met. This experience just goes to show that through Heavenly Father's help anything is possible and through him you can achieve your greatest potential. The women who was baptized on Saturday is so different then the women we met a month ago. And I'm just so happy that Heavenly Father trusted me enough to help him in bringing back one of his daughters :)

Haha something funny about Sherijl she was insanely excited about getting baptized! I'm pretty sure there has never been anyone in the history of ever who was as excited as she was to get baptized. haha So this last week we went over to her house everyday to make sure she was really prepared and every time we went over there all she could talk about was her baptism on Saturday. She said that she couldn't sleep at night because she was so excited. Then when it was time for her to get baptized she didn't just walk into the baptismal font.... she danced! It was so cute to see how excited she was. I love her :) I just know that I was sent here to find her and teach her. Nothing has ever made me happier than to know that I helped someone find their way back to the path of happiness and to Jesus Christ. I love being a missionary! I'm so grateful for this opportunity I have to go out and find my friends here in Suriname who are waiting to receive the gospel. Through this experience I have learned that with hard work, determination and faith in God absolutely anything is possible. And God really does work according to our faith. So believe in him and know that he is here to help us, we just have to have the faith to know that he can :)

I love y'all so much and I'm so grateful for all the prayers and love. I hope you all had a great thanksgiving and ate lots of turkey and pie and watched lots of football! Talk to you next week! Doei!

Met Liefde, 

Zuster Christiansen