Take a Sick Week, Boss.

     What a week! As I got home from my p-day last week, I felt it: I was going to be sick. But I didn't expect it to be most of this week. So to sum my week up, I got sick, had runny belly and a high fever with a sinus headache. On Wednesday we had district meeting in Port Antonio (2 hour drive) and I don't know how I made it there and back. It was awful! We finally went out Friday I think it was. We had one lesson this week and nothing cool happened aside from Sister Luelen calling us Friday morning begging us to come over quickly to save some of her puppies that fell down a small hole.
     Turns out the hole was a small opening in the ground, but was seven and a half feet deep, and opened up into a cavern underground. We tied a cloth to a stick and ended up hoisting the puppies out of the hole one by one. One of them got bit by another dog and died the next day.

The pole and the cavern were four feet deeper than me! (10 feet deep)

Another Week in the Life

     This past week of missionary work was just that. Elder Gardener and I are keeping on and working with some investigators hoping they will act and become progressing. Everyone here has great potantial but Satan realizes this and drags them way down. Each person struggles a ton when they start to progress. Like Girls cheating on them and leaving them, divorce, children die, etc. It's awful... Satan knows their potential in the church and tries so hard to keep the branch I'm in small and weak. But I'm not going to let that happen!
     Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting and talked on Member missionary work. My basis was D&C 88:77,81 and lot of encouragement and ways members can help the two poor busy missionaries (and 3 sister missionaries). We hope to strengthen the branch we do have so when we bring new converts in they have a net to fall into.
     Today Linstead missionaries are coming up to Ochi and were all going to the beach to play in the sand and maybe hit a volleyball around. I'm excited to talk to Elder Johnson, my MTC companion, and catch up with him. Thank you all for those who email me and sorry if I can't get back to you very personally, I am busy like you'd imagine. I love you all and hope you have a great week!


These pics are the North coast so if I swam hard I'd hit Florida! (not!)
On the road from Ochi to Port Antonio

 On the road from Ochi to Port Antonio

 On the road from Ochi to Port Antonio

Flour for everyone!

     This week's missionary work was exhausting but the week went fast anyway. We saw a lot less people and taught very few lessons because everyone is so "busy". It's frustrating sometimes when we have this amazing message and nobody even bats an eye at it. They just don't seem to care... We'll get 'em though!

     Tracy's birthday was a few days ago and we floured her and her family then ate cheesecake and cake! That's Sister Barlow on the left, she is from Idaho too! I'm figuring out some good food recipes! I'm working on balancing my budget to have enough food and money at the end of the month, and we'll see how it goes! Jay's baptism fell through when he got offended during the baptismal interview the day before. We're gonna keep working with him hopefully to get him in water by the end of the month. He is so close but needs to learn some more. Sorry for the short post but not much happened this week that was real noteworthy. Our investigators are in a state of rest I can say. We hope they will start acting soon.

Corn Rows?!

     Oh BOY! This last week was crazy! It went super fast and we got a ton of missionary work done. I went on my first trade-off and it went badly in the sense that none of our appointments were aware that they were appointments and they all fell through. In the light I got to talk a lot with Elder Zeck from Canada. He's a cool guy and really nice. He's one of the two zone leaders and they spent a few nights at our Ochi house. I kind of want a four Elder house, it seems a lot more fun. I like only doing my own dishes though and its nice cause our house is clean most of the time. We hit a record of five investigators at church yesterday and have a lot of almost progressings! The work will speed up soon I can feel it!

Anyway here's last weeks promise, me with corn rows!

 And Here is my District and Zone leaders! From left to right, Elder Jernigan(redhead and zl), Elder Muirhead (black), Elder Zeck(way in back and Canadian and zl), Sister Barlow(pink in front), Sister Mashabella(Front and center!), Sister Penaydo(shrugging on right), Elder Gardner(my companion to my right), and Elder Evans(back right).

First pictures and some cool stuff

 This is next to my area this is Mansfield Heights. The road you see is a downward 30 degree angle and out to the left is the bush. People build concrete houses in the bush and live in the bush. There are hundreds of people here, sprinkled in between the trees and such. It's a close feeling but poverty is obvious.

 This is a Book of Mormon we gave to a contact named Trevor. He seemed really interested and we knew he could use the Gospel. He wanted a copy of the book so we committed him to read. He is on vacation for a week and here's where he left the book. Right where we met him in front of his house. A few days had passed and it rained a few times. Bugs were also feasting upon the words of Christ.

This is Rohan!!! He loves going out with us to teach and his conversion story is cool too. He's such a sweet soul and I love how much he has taught me about the gospel and Jamaica. His patois is medium to medium heavy, and gets worse when he talks to other Jamaicans.