Jyamyaaycya

     SO MOBAY! wow this has been an interesting week. Lots of really cool lessons, and some car headaches. lol I am not used to being in a car and it's made me sick a few times already. It's not a complete blessing yet. My camera broke and I'll be getting a new one today. The week has been full of lessons with really cool progressing investigators (a few baptisms soon come), and some way nice people that I see entering the church. The tri-panionship is going great, we were all nervous about it but its working out. Elder Ritchie and Elder Jones are great and I don't feel  like a third wheel most of the time. I love the lessons we get to teach, they are mostly very spiritual and full and simple. I'm learning more on how to contact and how to teach simply. Challenging and Testifying has brought about a whole new meaning to me as I have put it into action. Mobay is so beautiful and I'm lucky toserve in one of the best branches on the island! The members here are so sweet! Church was one of the best things about this week. I loved the members' testimonies and enthusiasm in classes. You don't get much of that. The church is alive here in Mobay. Thats mostly about it for today. Blogger won't let me paste my voice recordings today,  but I'll try to get those on here soon. If i can. Love you all!
Manners.

May Pen was a Time Crunch

     For posterity sake, I am back on the blog. I'm going to write a few snetences becuase a birdy told me to (lol dad...). This last three months I have been in May Pen district, MAndeville zone. I have had two companions: Elder Ozment and Elder Brown. Elder Ozment was that guy who was my DL up in Ochi, and we prophesied we would be companions before he left in August. It came true. That transfer was fun, we teach powerfully together, and talked to many cool people. We progressed Howard Tinson Forward and he was baptized on May 7th, 2016. I'll have to touch on his story later. Too long for today! Elder Ozment left and I was called to train again. I recieved Elder brown and we spent the last transfer going through what seemed to be the toughest but most rewarding transfer ever. I'm grateful for his companionship.
     Transfer calls came last Saturday, and I got the call that I'm leaving in the middle of training to become a "part-time zone leader" (in a Tripanionship with Elder Ritchie and Elder Jones).I'm giong to miss May Pen and a lot of our investigators and Recent converts a ton. Here are some pics of them.

The Myrie family, soon be baptized!

Ahh, good old mash-up ear. The neighborhood scrounge-puss.

Mash-up ear for a reason.

Elder Brown and I this morning.

Brother Ferrari, his wife (center) and Sister Channer and her Daughter. Love her daughter, she is so cool!

umm...yeah.

...

Howard Tinson!!!!

AAHHHH!!!!

Kenroy, Devie (Devon), and Shaggy (dumb-looking dog with his tongue out)

Brought to the Waters of Baptism

     This week was great and crazy. Lots of preparations for the baptism of Makissa Lewis and her two kids, Sapphine and Sashanique. The week was comprised of making sure they were taught everything they needed and making said preparation.
     All in all we didn't have a great teaching week, but we brought three souls into the font and helped them make eternal convenants! I am so excited for them, they have so much faith and are very strong. We floured President Medley for his birthday yesterday, and got cake for it! haha! I love Jamaica and its cute cultural quirks.
     I have learned a lot about myself this past few weeks. Who I am, what is important, where my loyalties are truly placed, and who I need to become/ who God sees me as. Thanks to president Brown, and prayer, I am more aware and can grow further in my mission experience.



Forgot my camera cord today, so next week youll see the new members of our church!

Because he got high

So we found a gentleman this week and he is the don of weed. but the interesting thing is, he doesnt sell it, he just smokes it. Here are some pictures of his buckets of weed!

Yes that is a ton of weed. But in other news we're going to try to baptize him and his family! more news will come as we teach them. This week was pretty cool even though it was soooo long!

     Lots of finding and tracting happened, but Elder Fowkes my new companion is really good at talking to people, so it isn't hard, just slow work.

     Not by my own actions, I almost got hit three times off my bicycle by cars (I'm okay don't worry Hailey!) and fell of my bike a bunch whilst not even moving. just standing and talking, lose balance and thwomp! On the ground. Elder Fowkes just laughs at how clumsy I am. It rained a few days and such. That makes the work hard. But almost all of our appointments fell through, so we had a lot of finding to do. What is incredible is when you pray an ask for males and families, you find them. Kinda cool how God works, huh?

     BIG NEWS!!! We are having three baptisms on the 13 of February!!! Makissa and her two kids have been learning for about four or five weeks and are the most faithful people i have met in Jamaica. I'm very excited for them and can't wait to be a part of their experience of coming into the church!

All the craziness...

Hey sorry about the bad post (non-existant post) last week. Lots of stuff was going down with my hour for email and I needed all the time for other prospects. I will eventually go back and fill it in.

But as a reader's digest version of these last two weeks, Elder Porter, Elder Stolp, and Sister Williams, Elder Havili, and Elder Johnson got transferred out of our district, so lots of changes. I now have Elder Fowkes, who has three months left on his mission. He is from Gilbert, AZ. We are already close bros! We have taught some already and I feel like we will get along fine. Elder Porter was a boss though, I will miss him a ton. We will have to link afterwards. I may have only 6 weeks left in Kingston, but I want more time. I haven't done enough in this area yet!

     Pictures didn't make it this week, super sorry. Will update next week... Thanks for being patient with me!!!

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Livin' in Jamaica

Okay so tons of random pictures today this week!!! :) Not a whole lot went on this week but there are a few highlights.
     We met a FAMILY OF "G's" (A G is a cool person. i.e. "Dude, your dad is a G!") but anyway, Makissa and her two kids are super elect, and are very prepared to accept this gospel. They came to church without invitation and want to be baptized. Her son wants to serve a mission already (only a few likkle years an come)! They love to learn and Makissa is asking questions like "who is God talking to when he says 'Let US make man in OUR image' Who is US and OUR?" She is ready for the temple! lol
     I have started to see the results from gym effort!!! Now sadly my bicep in that picture is fake, I'm pushing it up (HAHA cheating!) but I'm set on getting that big!
     I have perfected my ackee and saltfish. It tastes soooo good and its so sad that I won't have ackee super available in the states... :( Don't worry mom and dad, all dem yaadies make me know how fi cook it right. :)
     There is a picture of my district all wearing green, we coordinate for Sundays now! Super fun and way easy! If you look closely you can see my "Polar Bear" edition of the Book of Mormon! Thank you so much Hails! I love it.
     I also have a picture of stew peas and rice down there somewhere. The Parks are a lovely old couple that, out of gratitude for all missionaries everywhere, feed us every other Sunday after church! They are so nice and it is such a tender mercy to us after church. We thank them profusely each tie and make sure they are okay. I can never forget the Parks, they have made it into my heart (through my stomach!).
     I have learned a lot of gospel stuffs, mostly personal this week. My new focus is to never drop off my studies from this amount of intensity again. If I do, I want to get back to diligent study ASAP. I get so much more out of life and the scriptures when I study that diligently.

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO...
*drumroll*
THE PICTUUUUUUUUUUURES!!!!

One of the Best Weeks

Okay I feel terrible so I'm going to write a great post this week. This week had a lot that happened and both good and bad and funny and sad too. Here we go:

     MONDAY: A few days ago, my bike pedals stopped rotating. The bearings in them seized up and made for a very uncomfortable ride. We went to a pharmacy and got some pedals, which after walking out of the store and trying to get on, we realized they were the wrong size. Now returns are not as easy out here as they are in the states. Ten or so minutes later we got the right ones and proceeded to attempt getting the old ones off. They must have been welded on they were so tough to get off. After cleaning the house, we decided to move the beds out into the main living area so we could both have our own companion study rooms. I think i forgot to take a pic of that, but we'll see. For our grocery shopping, we went to PriceSmart (Costco knockoff) and now that the sister missionaries don't have a car, we had to tow all our stuff home on our bikes. Doesn't sound bad, but when you know how shopping goes at Costco you then know how much we had to tow home. The other elders had to taxi home! Haha!

     TUESDAY: Today we had an incredible day of missionary work. At the end of the day we had 6 member present lessons with three different members, four new investigators, a few contacts, some referrals, etc. It was so crazy! The Lord blesses you when you just go and do His work. When you just talk to people, and care about them and their soul, you have no fear in sharing the gospel!

     WEDNESDAY: District meeting and stuff, nothing exciting haha. We discussed a lot on how to have better studies and prayers, and some cool revelation flew around.

     THURSDAY: OUR BIKES GOT TIEFED!!! Last night our bikes got stolen as we were in a deep sleep (I promise the Nephites didn't give us any wine) The thief clipped my cable and made away with three bikes and a helmet. But the blessings of this are far greater than the inconvenience of losing two very broken bikes. The same day we went out to a store to get Elder Porter a new bike and fix an old one up for me, and on the way back we had to use our new brakes ten or so times to not get hit by cars. God is good and funny and caring and loving and smart and great and awesome!!!


     FRIDAY: SO BLOSSOM! Violet (yard name is Blossom) is Marcia's friend and wants to know the truth. When we showed up for our last lesson, she was reading the Book of Mormon intently! She is very ready for the gospel, but has a few distractions. I'm glad for her desire and pure heart. After that lesson we were called by the sister missionaries to give a newer member an emergency blessing. We sped across town and administered. It was a cool experience too. I love serving with the priesthood!

     SATURDAY: Coordination meeting happened and Chris fed us breadfruit with ackee and saltfish with econodogs in it. My eyes were bigger than my stomach and Sister Williams finished off my plate. Haha we all made her feel bad cause she wasn't sure if she should be finishing an elder's food. We gave her a bunch of slack, but she just wanted food.

The Importance of Members

We found a cool new lesson plan to share with our members to help ease them in and invite them into the work to do their part in growing the Kingdom. If you read Alma 8-10 in the light that Alma is the missionaries and Amulek is the members, you'll be able to get the idea of the lesson. It has helped the members here to feel the HG and want/desire to help us do this great work. We doubled our teaching pool in two days of seeing a few member families. Hopefully we see those who we have now progess toward the waters of baptism and the temple. The last week was slow aside from that, so many people in country for the holiday. We will see if it picks up this week.Much love from Jamrock and all yuh likkle pickney nuh mash up di place yannastan mi mah bruddah yaziwahmi-azey?

Pics this week!

So this week was great! 

     Monday, we had p-day. Nothing fun happens on p-days, I wish we had zone activities. I want to see some island sights. 

     Tuesday we went to Sister Ffrench's house and chopped down a few trees. That's me way up there on the bean pole! Only about 30 or 35 feet up, and it was very sturdy. I'm being safe I promise!!! 

     Wednesday was the Christmas party where everyone got their boxes. We got good Jamrock food and enjoyed a lot of cool conversation. We also got to see the "Dad side" of President Brown, throwing wrapping paper and candy at us all. I had a good time and Love everything that was in my box! I think i posted our Christmas tree in next weeks or the weeks after's blog, but it is a Coconut tree frond standing in a corner of the house! lol! Livin' in Jamaica!

     Thursday was Christmas eve and we tried to go caroling, but it all fell through. Our house went to a photo booth and took a Christmas picture. The "Wal-mart photo" type backgrounds are so terrible here in Jamaica (a laughing stock among missionaries), so we made the ugliest and coolest card we could! I'll hopefully get a scanned copy of it to put on here for all!

     Friday was Christmas. Mission Christmas is nothing like normal Christmas back home and I liked it in a way apart from the fact that I was away from Hailey... My fam too... We got fed a few meals and got to talk to our families. I was so grateful to be able to hear Hailey's voice and see her for a short time. It meant a whole lot to me and was the highlight of my holiday!

     Saturday and the past few days I had been sick, both Elder Porter  and I were going through crazy symptoms like bad bubblegum! He got a rash then I got a fever, he got sick then I couldn't get out of bed! But we pressed on and had a good rest day or two. 

     Sunday We didn't get the sacrament for the sickness :"( and I watched a ton of church videos on CD. I also wrote Hailey a chunk of letters.