Canje District Conferences

The orange circle shows the area of the Canje District. There are six branches:

• Bushlot is towards Georgetown and is the newest branch in the district
• Rosignal is on the east side of the Berbice River
• New Amsterdam is just across the river
• Canje has a nice church built building
• Rose Hall is further east
• Crabwood Creek is the furthest east - just across the river from Suriname

There are two zones of missionaries - Canje and Berbice

Today we split the District Conference into two sessions because the ferry across the river has been very slow and unreliable lately.

We started with conference on the east side of the river in a large school auditorium.


About 350 people were there (I think that is me, speaking, in the far far distance)


after conference



How do the Canje saints travel home from conference?

by bicycle (Travis and Travis Jr.)


by truck




President Robison climbed in


off they go


oops - forgot someone


After the morning session we went to the ferry to cross the river for the afternoon session. We drove up just as they were locking the gates. The assistants talked and talked and got us in - something the Bullocks (missionary couple serving there) had never seen before. If we hadn't gotten on that ferry, we would have been late to conference.

Sister Bullock and I decided it was a 'green' day


Elder Bullock and President Robison wanted us to know that their outfits were matching too


Elders McDaniel and Williamson with President Mohenlal (counselor in the District Presidency - I KNOW I spelled that wrong) stood guard over our stuff


The Rosignal building where we held the afternoon session


Two hundred chairs fit in and they were all full by the time conference started


Beautiful Canje saints


check out the nifty tie


These sisters are from Bushlot. Their ages range from 15 to 10. Cecelee, second from the right, gave a fabulous talk in conference on baptism ending with "if you want to go to the celestial kingdom, get baptized!" I leaned over to President Robison and said, "seminary is really preparing these young people." I found out later that she is only 11!


By the end of two conferences (six hours) with no AC, I was way past feeling good about having my appearance recorded forever, but a few families really wanted pictures



We held one more leadership training session and then off we went - back to Georgetown.

Elder McDaniel deftly drove us past cows, ducks, children, donkeys, dogs, bicycles....


Refreshing reward for our long but wonderful day - a stunning (and typically Guyana) sunset sky

Saturday in Canje, Guyana

It's unusual to have zone conference on a Saturday because that is BAPTISM DAY. But because we were having District Conference, it worked best to schedule everything on the weekend.

It was an uplifting conference and a great weekend that also included two District Conference sessions (one on each side of the Berbice River) and two leadership training sessions. It was hot (no AC in any of the buildings), non stop, but wonderful.

Canje Zone


and Berbice Zone


Tidal Waves (zone conference newsletter) are popular - mostly because they have a list of every person that was baptized during the past six weeks.

Monkey fun

We had a wonderful leadership training tonight in Georgetown, Guyana.

But we took a little break this morning with Elder and Sister Evans





Tomorrow we head to the Canje/Berbice area for a zone conference (Saturday) and to sessions of district conference (Sunday).

We will be away from internet until Monday night.

Band of Brothers

One of the mottoes for the West Indies Mission is "Band of Brothers"

We can say that because we don't have young sister missionaries and us older sister missionaries are quite happy to be part of this powerful group.

There is quite a bond among the missionaries in this mission. I often overhear them ending phone calls with 'love ya brother' and I have never seen so many manly back slapping hugs in my life!

I noticed an example of this brotherly attitude towards the work of bringing souls into the kingdom as I looked over the elders' weekly success stories. The elders share a success story each week in an email to President Robison. The assistants select a few of them and send a collection back out to all the missionaries so they can see the blessings happening around the mission. I post some of them on the mission website here but wanted to share these two together to tell the a complete story.

Elder Holmstead (San Juan, Trinidad) – Well we were having a rough time in our focus area and decided to change it to a place called Bagladesh and it was so fun. We found a lot of kind people but not anyone to really baptize. Then at church, few weeks ago, a lady named Anita showed up whom we gladly went to teach, and she was amazing! She was very prepared, however, the only problem was that she got deported from Trinidad to Guyana but she said she would find the church and she did. She is one of last week’s 66, and boy am I happy. We were in Bagladesh for one reason, her being that main reason, and now she is a member!

Elder Dayton (Rose Hall 1, Guyana) (The story behind Elder Holmstead’s) We had received a referral from the office elders of a lady who was pretty much ready for baptism but had recently moved from Trinidad to Guyana. The first week we couldn’t get a hold of her and didn’t have any luck finding her. Just the other day, I saw an unfamiliar face in church so I began to talk with this lady. It took me a minute to put it together that this was the referral we couldn’t get a hold of. Right there on the spot I asked her if she wanted to be baptized after church. She responded without hesitance and a confident "yes." We did absolutely nothing but watch her be baptized...that is the definition of the Lord knowing who he wants in his church and getting them there.

Nov 24 Success Stories

Wednesday in Georgetown Guyana

We had zone conference this morning with half the Guyana missionaries. They are a big impressive group!

The gate to the church was locked so I got to watch them arrive in the rain one by one and wait in their bright white shirts.


The group was quiet but thoughtful today and many told me they had 'ah ha' moments as they took their questions to the scriptures.

We had a fine musical number from Elders Young, Clark, Richardson, and Vernes and led by the talented Elder Ritchey


Here is our group shot. We couldn't find a nice tree of life to stand by as in Suriname. If fact, we couldn't even find a single tree on the church property - so sad.


They are far away so here is a closer look







Aren't they sharp?

And here are the wonderful couples (plus a couple of Trinis in the middle)

Langfords (CES), Larsons (proselyting, Diamond), Robisons, Tanners (humanitarian, sadly going home very soon), Evans (proselyting and management, Georgetown)


The elders reviewed area books after conference

Elders Fisher, Carlson, Williams, and Brenkmann


Elders McDaniel, Sarager, Ritchey, and Harris


Elders Tupou, Falatau, Richardson, Nestegard, Williamson, Vaia (back) and ? (back)


This activity always seems to disintegrate into manly push up contests

Elder Nestegard dazzling the group with a long series of one armed push ups


Elder Findlay assisted by Elder Vaia managed one of these


Packages arrived. So fun!

These new boots?


They're 'made for walkin' - in Guyana as the rainy season begins

Elder Carlson and Fisher

Monday in Suriname

Suriname is on fire (in a good way)

They had their highest ever month of baptisms - 30 in November!

Members and missionaries worked together to make it happen.

Suriname is the first stop on our continuous zone conference tour that will end in St Martin in 14 days. It's tricky to travel to Suriname (flights don't go every day) so we usually start there. Generally the French Guiana elders join us but this time there is a strike going on that closed all the roads in and out. We will try to hook them into the French zone conference in Guadeloupe using technology.

We had an incredible member/leadership training meeting last night. We got caught in nasty traffic as we drove in from the airport and were over an hour late so we called ahead and told the District President that he could just dismiss if it was getting too late for the members. When we finally walked into the downtown Parimaribo chapel, it was absolutely packed and the members were singing "The Spirit of God." They had been signing hymns the whole time and were anxiously awaiting counsel. There was a wonderful, eager to learn, spirit among the members. I can see why baptisms are increasing.

That same spirit was with the elders this morning.

We talked about learning by the spirit, Lehi's dream, and the importance of asking questions as we study and also as we teach.

It was appropriate that graffiti artist, Elder Koenen (pointing at the sign) just happened to have a tree of life to bring to zone conference.


President Robison and I want to be like Lehi and 'stay close to the tree'


President Robison started by asking the elders, "What question weighs on your mind?" They came up with quite a list


We then turned to the scriptures - not to answer each question - but to find out how to receive our own answers. It was a wonderful experience.

President Robison caught this shot during our discussion of Lehi's dream. Even though everyone in the room had read it a number of times - we learned new things we had never seen before as we considered it in the context of our questions


The conference finished with a Christmas hymn provided by Elders Shakespear, Muse, Croese, Riding, and Baantjer


This put us in the mood for Christmas gifts - our annual WIM slideshow DVD. Do they look merry?


After the conference we had our usual amazing Surinamese lunch and then the elders worked on their area books while President Robison conducted interviews.

Elders Muse, Shakespear, Croese, and Riding


Elders Harding and Tholen


Elders Jestice and Sorber


Somehow it all ended in a push up contest (boys are still boys)