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Week 18

Hello Everybody!

Jamaica is really a sweet place to be in the Holiday Season! i must say that i do hate that it is super hot tho. it might be better if it got down to like 65 or something during the day. man that is cold! Calls Home this last week were quite good! it didnt really hit me that i had called home until i hung up haha.

Day 119 Monday
today was a SUPER different Pday than all of the others ive had so far. WE WENT AND DID SOMETHING!!! for the first time ever we went and did something instead of staying at the house the whole time haha. the Zone Leaders came out here and spent it with us so that was the inspiration. we went out to Folly Mansion to explore. we got done with that in like 30 minutes. so after that we went out to the beach in Long Bay. thank heavens that the ZLs can use their truck for stuff like that haha. biking there woulda been nuts. we tried to throw a Frisbee a bit while we were there but we stopped. it kept going into the Caribbean Sea. not the best thing for a missionary to be going into. especially since we are not allowed in the water haha. it went in like 3 times before we stopped. the waves luckily got it back to us every time haha. those waves were sent from heaven lol! then we played shoulder tag. that was a very hard game. but the beach defiantly had some Kodak moments to it. especially when we had to run from a really big wave haha. the towns are starting to get super busy for christmas. i have never seen Porty so bad. its like trying to drive on the sidewalks in New York.

Day 120 Tuesday
we had district meeting in ochi today. a bit different but it was good. elder dalley also had to do some baptismal interviews since he is the district leader. These people were super awesome! but they are major talkers. The first interview took like 2 hours. we thought that there was a major concern at first. elder dalley then told us that he was good and that the guy was just a major talker. we laughed super hard. then he had to interview his wife. the wife was way set. the first thing that she told elder dalley was that she was shy and didnt talk much. then she went on about her whole life story. she has had some major trials so its awesome that she is being baptized! but that one then took another 2 hours. that makes 4 hours total for baptismal interviews! it was crazy! we didnt get out of ochi until like 6pm! we had no teaching done for the entire day! but the guy being baptized did give us some advice on how to get the people of Jamaica into the church. lets just say that i took some serious notes haha. 

Day 121 Wednesday/Christmas!
so the first chrsitmas away from home was super weird but it was cool too. calls home helped out a bit with the weirdness lol. 40 minutes for a phone call is not that much. i felt like i didnt get to say anything! it just started and just ended right then! not fair haha. next time will be better tho. im thinking of doing 2 calls tho. just depends on how well that mom and dad know how to use skype haha ;). we will see what happens in may tho haha. we didnt have a lot of teaching cause we were told not to bother people for the day. we just had short little messages from the ensign. i do miss being home tho. there are so many things that i wish i didnt have to leave behind but at the same time im very glad that i did leave them. this mission has really changed my life for the better. it has showed me what i want my life to be and what i want to come into my life.

Day 122 Thursday/Boxing Day
happy boxing day everyone! haha we have had a strange obsession with today for a bit so ya. we texted it to all of the missionaries that we have in our phone. one elder texted us saying "we dont say that here". we just laughed about the whole thing. we even asked some Canadians in the mission what the meaning for the day was. we got different answers from each of them so we still have no clue haha. today for lessons we went and checked up on Brother James, who is in the branch presidency. he has not been to church for a couple weeks cause his feet are super swollen from having diabetes. its super sad. we also finally had another lesson with Shanakay. she was actually sick so that is tomorrow. we also taught brother estrine. he seems to have softened up from the last time we saw him. he is less active so hopefully he will be to church. Overall it was a good day. the biking just really made me have a sore butt haha. 

Day 123 Friday
well, it rained, and rained, and rained today. it was very on and off but it was still a ton of rain. and it came down super hard by the end of the day. luckily we found shelter since we got caught in it. we had an awesome lesson with a member about chapter 9 in preach my gospel. it was all about the importance of members in finding people to teach. she was all for it. we had a lesson with the campbells about the importance of having family home evening as well. they really want to do them. we are just gonna have to get them in the habit of having them for a few weeks before they will on their own haha

Day 124 Saturday
another day and yet another rain storm. we got caught in yet another rain storm and i am going to be soaked for a week because of it! we also got transfer calls today. Elder Strickland and Elder Ashby are staying the same in Porty 2. Elder Dalley is going to Linstead to be with someone from my MTC group (elder Martin). i am going to be staying in porty 1 and get elder davis. he is only 6 weeks older than me in mission age and is serving in Montego Bay right now. he is super cool. i have met him a few times during zone meetings and he is way spiritual! i get the feeling that Porty is gonna boom this transfer. it also kinda saddens me to think that this is probably my last transfer in Porty since ive been here for 4 1/2 months. 6 months is usually when people leave an area. but this place is m home and it will always have a place in my heart! i got 6 weeks to think of that tho haha

Day 125 Sunday/My 19th Birthday!
so i am now a 19 year old person. weird to be saying that right now haha. just wait till next year when i am going to be 20! i got a face full of flour to celebrate it. there should be a picture with my parents somewhere. it was super funny. elder strickland did use quite a lot tho. usually its about as much flour as the Catholics use water to baptize you haha. but he got a bowl full of it! Kashane also decided to hit me for it. idk. that kid is just crazy. i will get elder strickland back for the flour tho. maybe ill use sugar one day lol. members didnt do anyting for it. i doubt that people knew it was today haha. sister brown did call me to wish me a happy bday tho haha. 

well thats really all. oh wait, fun fact for the day. i might have a small concussion. elder strickland and i were rough housing around and i got smacked in the head with a broom pole. i napped and it helped a bit but not much. i still am having headaches. so if this email doesnt make sense then blame elder strickland haha!

another fun fact. Elder Austin Fitkeau, from Pleasant Grove, is now the Zone Leader in Montego Bay!

Ok now that is really all that i have for this week. Hope to hear from you all next week!

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Week 17

Happy Boxing Day on the 26th everyone!!! haha dont worry. boxing day isnt even big down here. nobody knows what the point to it even is. so in that case, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! ive been terrible at keeping up in my journal to know whagwan this week so if this letter is short im sorry.

Monday 12-16-13
Today was another P-Day. i sat around the house while everyone else did their wash haha. Someday i will do something fun. i just dont know when that day will be. oh well. Today we went and saw the Campbell family again. we need to tell them one of these days that we wont stop by on Mondays if they are not having a FHE. that might just make them not have it tho haha. We taught brother campbell about service and how it is part of his baptismal covenant that he needs to "mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who need comfort" (Alma 18:8-11). he really already knew all of the stuff. He is really doing quite well despite him not being baptized for like 20 years or something like that. he was taught clear back when president Brown was a missionary here. and he is 36 to give you a perspective of that.

Tuesday 12-17-13
we did no teaching today whatsoever. once we got done with our personal and companionship studies we started to drive over to Montego Bay for our Zone Christmas party. we were going to go to Kingston for a mission party but the missionary department said that the missionaries shouldnt all flock to one place. We picked up the missionaries in Ocho Rios as well. the party started at 2 so we had to kinda rush the driving. its quite fun haha. it was fun to see all of the missionaries again. and thanks again for the gifts guys! they are awesome! the party got done and then we drove back to Ochi to stay the night. we had district meeting in the morning so staying the night is easier on the gas.

Wednesday 12-18-13
Today was kinda weird. as far as our key indicators go, we didnt do anything. and really, i dont remember what we did on that day. we had plans to go our to long bay, see a less active member, and also try to teach the Dago girl who is not baptized yet. all i know is that none of those appointments happened. this is why i need to write in my journal more haha

Thursday 12-19-13
We did a trade off today so i worked with elder strickland over on my side of portand. we went and saw Cedrick. we had a small lesson with him on the importance of church. he hasnt come the last few weeks and he needs to start coming again. we also saw Sister Brown and had a really good lesson with her. she is still a bit confused but she is getting more knowledge. we also went and saw a very less active. so less active that i have never seen him before and it has been a long time since any missionaries have seen him. he said that he would be at church next week so that should be good.

Friday 12-20-13
We were supposed to watch a broadcast that elder cornish from the area presidency but the sound and video were super bad so we couldnt hear or see it. i also missed the whole thing cause i decided to go to the bathroom at the wrong time haha. we did finally have a lesson with Nicole Dago tho. we got through about half of the restoration and then had to go so that we could make it for the broadcast. we so wish that we had stayed longer haha. but she will be baptized someday. she just has to have a day and needs to come to church.

Saturday 12-21-13
today was the big christmas concert that we have been trying to get everyone too for a while. it didnt work. we had the same problems as yesterday. it just cut out and never came back at one point. we just watched the first presidency christmas message. after that the branch had their own party. it was super fun! not a lot of people came to the broadcast but a lot showed up to the party. we are not sure what to think of that to be honest. but the party was still tons of fun and there were a lot of non member people there. we are hoping to find them again and teach them.

Sunday 12-22-13
it was frustrating today. remember the branch mission plan that we wanted to have the branch make like 5 weeks ago? ya its still not done. the branch has put it off. we only have until next week to get it done. i decided that i wasnt going to worry about it anymore and just let them see what happens if its not made. only like 1 or 2 of the members that are involved with branch council even care about it. i think that president brown is gonna have to step in for them to get it done. but one day they will have it done. its just going to take some time. elder dalley and strickland also felt a bit sick so elder ashby and i went and did some work in both of the areas. we saw the dagos and some people for them who are almost ready to be baptized. it was a pretty good day to be honest just very frustrating.

Well i hope that everyone has a merry christmas, a happy new year, and a joyful boxing day! may christ be with you always. calls home this week should be fun! as an old, fat man who is obsessed with chimneys, cookies, reindeer, and presents would say: "Merry Christmas to all! and to all a good [two years]!

Week 16

So this week has been a little nuts. Rain has been falling like CRAZY!!!  but youll have to wait till you read the rest of my letter to find that out haha

Day 118 Monday
well the rain came down today. AGAIN!  the concept of it being December and still raining and being 80 degrees is so strange to me still! its gonna be a long time before i have a white Christmas, the only thing white about christmas down here is the missionaries and the tourists haha! anyways, we were going to go out to Clear Springs to teach the Dago family, they have an unbaptized member in the family. but the rain started coming down and since it was dark i couldnt see all to well. we turned around and went to the Campbell family. we were hoping they wouldnt be too mad cause we were going to go by there later in the evening. only sister campbell was a bit annoyed haha. we stop by there a lot that she just kids around with us about it haha. we will be sure to give her a small break tho. we taught brother campbell about the priesthood duties. he is preparing for the Melkedzick Priesthood so he needs to pass and bless the sacrament a few time before he gets the high priesthood. just realize one thing everyone, missionaries never leave you alone. when your less active, they come to get you to church. when your active, they come for referrals. save the time and just come to church and introduce your friends to the gospel haha.

Day 119 Tuesday
we were completely rebuked today! the best part, president brown had nothing to do with it! i dont know what he would rebuke us for haha. we went over to a Less Active persons house (sister brown) and tried to teach her. we got a little bit into the lesson, we had a prayer and started to teach doctrine, when her son came out. we asked him if he wanted to join us, and he freaked out. he started just ranting about some random crap. the only parts of the conversation that i got were were he said stuff like "im never going to join you! my god is not white! white people put my forefathers in slavery!". sister brown then told him that he was bringing disgrace on his family. he was not happy about that. we decided to leave. the spirit just left really fast. he was still going off about when we left haha. lets just say that we are not going to teach him for a very long long time haha.

Day 120 Wednesday
so most of our day was us driving to Montego Bay for zone meeting and then back to Port Antonio. Zone meeting was super good hto. it was all about finding people to teach through our own efforts. the mission kinda slacked off on that after the zone meeting on working with members. its something we will have to work on a lot. luckily we were able to get back to Porty in time to have a lesson with Kenroy. we found out that he believes that everything we have taught him is true, but he wants to come to a full knowledge before he is baptized. we showed him elder holland talk on how believing is good for now and it will come to a full knowledge later. it seemed to help a bit. he didnt give a hard commitment to his baptism day so we are going to get that next time.

Day 121 Thursday
today was a little interesting. we went back to sister brown today, and did not get rebuked by her son haha, and continued the lesson that we were having on tuesday. she is very confused. the missionaries who taught her really screwed up big time. she was baptized before she had a testimony of anything and she feels bad about it so she doesnt come to church. she does everything else she just doesnt come to church. she wants to know if its true tho. all of the questions she asks are super sincere. some are even questions that other ask us just to bash, but hers are not like that. we also got a new investigator today! she is a 7th day  but is super understanding. she understood the priesthood cause she told us that a baptism is not valid without the Authority of god so a baptism wouldnt be valid in heaven without it. hopefully she will be baptized here soon haha!

Day 122 Friday
Traveling as a missionary is one of the most frustrating things ever. we are not allowed to use the Pajero for anything other than getting to Ochi, Mo Bay, and Sav for meetings so its always bikes and taxis for us. We had to take a taxi to Long Bay today, which is 30 minutes away by car. Ulacey was an interesting appointment. we were hoping to have her 8 year old son as a new investigator, but that didnt work out. he cant hold still for more than a minute. not much of a surprise tho. like, hes 8. what else are you going to do. we did get a new investigator from it tho. there is another girl there named Danae that we gave a pamphlet a little bit ago and she joined in on the lesson. She is really understanding. its just gonna be hard to get all of them to church cause of the distance from Long Bay to Porty. Ulacey still doesnt understand that we dont do Bible Study. its something that we are going to have to really work with for the next little while.

Day 123 Saturday
Today elder dalley and i stayed in for a while cause we are both sick. he slept while i played cards. it was quite boring. hopefully i dont get that sick on my mission. i hated that with a passion. number wise, we didnt really do anything today. all we really did was have a lesson with Sister Wilson. we tried to get a referral by using the Book of Mormon and what it means to her, but we didnt get a referral from it. its gonna take just the right lesson for us to get a referral from her haha. one day tho. i know this is short but thats really all that we did today. everything else just blew out.

Day 124 Sunday
we had a no numbers day again. but the difference was, we didnt teach anyone. everything that we had planned blew out. we tried to be productive tho. chruch was pretty good. we have to work on the gospel principles teacher tho. she tends to only look for certain answers, she is the one that talks the whole time, and she swears too. its odd cause she is doing it in the church and sometimes its the lords name in vain. something we really need to work on haha. but the biggest rain storm of my life came today. we were over in Anchovy trying to find something to do. we talked to a member and then started going home. thats when the rain hit. there was like an inch of water on the roads and its was raining as we were riding in the dark. IT. WAS. NUTS! kinda fun tho haha. i got super soaked tho. im really glad that i have started to put my stuff in plastic bags. it tends to help out a ton! nothing got wet at all!

Rain is super crazy down here as you can tell. we had a big storm on friday too that i forgot to mention. we were at the church so it wasnt too bad since we were inside haha. but thats all that i got for this week. see you all later!

Week 15

So i was gonna send some photos this week but my camera died and i dont have the batteries to power it back up. But i will send them next week. Promise. But this week has been pretty good. im gonna say that you guys want a run down on how everything went. well ok. haha i guess that this is how the week went:

Day 111 Monday
I have been super bad at keeping up on my journal. its like sunday night right now and im stressing to get this done. but thats my fault haha. ill be sure to repent of that. But i dont remember much of what happened. all i know is that we had plans to see a new investigator, and that blew out. we tried to contact a couple of former investigators that other missionaries taught over the last few years. that was pretty ok. we found a few and set up appointments for later in the week. after that we went over to the Campbell family and had a little Family Home Evening with them. we went over the restoration. we thought that it would be a good set up for the preisthood for brother Campbell and a good way to have Crystal, the girl who lives with them, pray about everything. lets just say that i think that the first one is the only one that really worked. Crystal doesnt take this too serious and her boyfriend in the Campbell family is very less active. like inactive. somehow we will get them to church tho. we then tried to play a game called "Liars Dice" with them. people got bored after like 5 minutes so they all just quit. party poopers haha

Day 112 Tuesday
Since Elder Dalley and I have been struggling with people to teach for the last few weeks we had a lot of appointments set up with people that we found in the former investigators section of the Area Book. We had plans to get like 5 new investigators today from all of them! well it didnt work out.... we got to meet like one person and it was a referral. more on that later. most of the appointments ended up falling through. one we even had to cancel with a part member family cause we didnt have the time to go there. we were halfway there before we realized that. we had to turn back just so that we could get to a place called Long Bay. Thats like a 30 minute taxi ride from Porty. that is where we met the one person that became our new investigator. it took us a little longer too cause we had no clue where we were going. its the farthest out that either one of us has been. She wasnt picking up her phone, like every Jamaican, so you can imagine the stress haha. we did have a good "How To Begin Teaching" lesson with her. for anyone that is planning to serve a mission, study chapter 10 in Preach My Gospel. its something that can make or break you mission haha.

Day 113 Wednesday
Today was a little funny and stressful haha. of course we had district meeting in Ochi today. but we did a tradeoff cause ochi was planning on having a baptismal interview either today or tomorrow. Elder Adams, who as i said in an earlier letter is from Ephriam, Utah, came over to Porty. on the way back we hit a huge straight part just past Oracabessa. We heard a big pop from the car. we all thought that a tire had blown out. we pulled over and saw that all the tires were fine. what happened is a cover under the car, one that protects the parts if you go off roading, had fallen off and smacked the road when we were going like 120kmh. the thing was torn quite a bit so we couldnt put the thing on. plus one of the screws was gone so it was impossible. we had to stay there for like 10 minutes. We called the office elders, and they couldnt tell us much. about the time we got off the phone with them the APs showed up. i guess they took a long lunch or something. after much talking, we just pulled the stupid cover off. then they took the Pajero to Kingston again to be fixed and we took their truck. lets just say that i really want a truck like that when i get home haha. super nice thing. 

Day 114 Thursday
i dont know what to think of today. im wondering just how inspired that the planning last night for today was. basically every single plan that we had for the day blew out. the only things that did not blow out were our dinner appointment and a lesson with Sister Campbell the investigator. but that lesson was pretty good. we reviewed the restoration with her. it seemed like she had forgotten a few things, considering that its been like 3 months since we last taught that to her. the spirit was really there in that lesson. but everything else just kinda was there. our lesson with a member was terrible, all of the people we were going to contact or see didnt show up. and i feel like we wasted our time for for most of the day. we did find a new person so that did brighten up the day. but its really frustrating to see that everything just blows out. i feel like we are doing everything we should be. something will happen tho. i know it.

Day 115 Friday
so day we switched back from the trade off. we also were going to get the Pajero back from the ZLs today. that made things a little tricky. we ended up having to do our big super planning in Ochi. the ZLs were going to give us the car back in Annotto Bay on our way back at like 3 or so. we did have an effective planning tho. one of the most effective planning that we have had so far since ive been in Jamaica. but since we were in ochi and then stayed in Annotto Bay we didnt get home until like 5:30. the rest of the day we didnt have a lot of time to do much so we really didnt have any lessons.

Day 116 Saturday
Im almost out of time so this is gonna be fast now:

we killed around 100 roaches today. eggs and all. our house was just crawling with them. we found a nest of them in one of our cupboards. we took some Pyro bug spray and a cig lighter and torched them all haha. its quite fun. not a recommendation tho. we broke the cupboard by kicking it. ya dont ask.

Day 117 Sunday
im frustrated today cause i feel like everyone in the district is having super big miracles and we can barely get someone to teach. i was reading with the question of what to do and i found it. i just need to be patient and keep being obedient. one day the teaching will come. its just a matter of time.

Sorry the last part was so fast. i just ran out of time. ill be sure to get more in next week.

Week 14

Hey Everyone!

No more Patios for you guys haha. i forgot that Google is something that you guys can use while i cant. just not too fair haha. 

I also found out that if you guys wanna write to me more then you can go to dearelder.com and email from there. just leave your email on the letter and i can email you back. there are still a few friends that i wanna hear from lol.

i forgot my journal today so i dont know what day i am on. im also too lazy to go back through my email and find out there haha.

Monday
Today was a pretty good day. i dont remember much of what happened cause its been a week but i know that it was good lol. I do remember that we had a lesson with Kenroy and the Campbell family. We had a lesson about the Law of Chastity with Kenroy. we tried to not have Kadeen there on purpose but she ended up walking in. oh well! the lesson was great and not as awkward as we thought. he was accepting to it and ready to live it. it is awesome to see how much he has changed than from when we first met him in September at Kadeens baptism. The Campbell family we had a lesson on keeping the sabbath. always a weird lesson for me to teach since everyone in Pleasant Grove knows that i would go down to Harts each sunday and buy Mtn. Dew haha. But ive come to a new understanding of it. they were kinda stubborn on closing down their shop on sundays cause they are new. hopefully they will close the shop on sundays here soon. they said they want to be established before they do but they have been open longer than ive been here. they arent that new haha. they come to it at some point tho. i can see it.

Tuesday
It was a very interesting day today. we saw Kadeen in the morning and tried to have a Q&A with her about the law of chastity. i guess that her and one of her friends have been really obsessed with that lately. it didnt work. all of them were answered by the other missionaries last night haha. oh well. but the rest of the day blew out completely. it didnt surprise us too much cause we didnt have any plans. last week i said that we were gonna go to Kingston. ya... that didnt happen. we had no plans and came up with everything last night. we had great plans to work with a lot of the members but most of them werent home or were busy. out last and only other lesson was with Sister Blake. we did the new way of working with members. it worked! we got like 6 or 7 names from it so we just told her that we should have a family home evening to get all the names super fast! she was all for it! we are planning on doing that on friday. and there are going to be people from both sides of Porty so it should be great for all 4 of us missionaries!

Wednesday
this is the first time that i will ever talk about what we did in district meeting haha. today we learned how we can better use the book of mormon. i basically learned that we need to start treating it like a book of scripture instead of something that we just give people. it is the evidence of everything that we teach and it needs to be treated like it. we are gonna start having more lessons where we just read. not just when they dont read, just in general have the lessons. the only lesson we had today after that was with Brother Banton. to quote the joke with me and dad a bit... "he was still pissed". he completely lied to my face about church. meaning that he started to go to a different church. he is too disappointed that he didnt get baptized when he wanted. all it is telling us is that he really wasnt ready. we had a .... collective dropping. he dropped us by going other places and we dropped him cause he was no longer interested at all. sucks cause he was our top investigator. now we have almost no one to teach.

Thursday
Elder Dalley and I decided that we need more people to teach. We are gonna treat ourselves like we are a white wash companionship. white wash is a term missionaries use that means that both missionaries are new to an area. its starting from scratch essentially. so we are talking with everyone. but we had 2 lessons today. and they were both with Kadeen. the first one was a coordination lesson for the lesson we were having with Kenroy that night so it didnt count towards any of our numbers. we prepared her for a lesson about Scripture study. our last lesson of the day with her was at the time we were going to teach Kenroy. he didnt show up and she was our backup. we taught her about missionary work and faith cause she hasnt been as excited about doing missionary work right now. she brought her friend who used to investigate the church. i say used to cause the other missionaries just dropped her like a week ago. the lesson kinda went toward her after a while. it was super spiirtual! more than i have ever felt on my mission so far! we still taught Kadeen that that was how we knew that someone was prepared. her friend was asking really sincere questions. one day she will be baptized. it will just be a while.

Friday
During super planning we decided inorder to get more investigators then we need to contact the formers. we made a plan to do that tomorrow so that we still have time for everything today. if we get extra time then we will do it then too. we had a lesson with president james about branch council. he is the second counselor but he is acting as branch prez cause the actual one is in the states for surgery. we are going to have the 2nd branch council since ive been here on sunday. we will be getting the branch mission plan all figured out. the next lesson i can remember was with Kenroy. we had the lesson about scripture study. it went super well! he is really studying the Book of Mormon! more than i ever did before i left on my mission. it is super cool! the spirit has really changed him a lot. he is probably the most influenced by the spirit that i have ever seen. he is at the point that he wants to know with a burning passion that what we teach is true. him and kadeen hang out a lot and they always talk about prophets and other things that we teach. fellowshipping is awesome!!

Saturday
today was a super weird day. we still dont have a lot of people to teach so we mostly just go with recent converts and less actives. we taught ashagaye today as the only number lesson. i feel super bad for her. she now cant come to church until she is 18 cause her mom will not allow her to. she wants to come but just cant. we taught her about scripture study. it shifted into a CPR lesson where we told her that the best way to get her back to church with permission was for her to pray everyday, read everyday, and also attend seminary if possible. we had a lesson with Brother Forrester today too. he is the person that feeds us on Sundays. he is gonna help us with a lesson with Kenroy tomorrow. it should be awesome cause he used to be a missionary himself!

Sunday
Church was good today. all i can really say about it haha. Kenroy was the only investigator that we had at chuch. that will change here soon haha. Our lesson with him went super well tho! it was on the Word of Wisdom. Brother Forrester killed it! he did a great job at making friends with him super fast! they basically talked about the word of wisdom the whole time! it should help Kenroy get some friends in the church who arent women haha. we also had the other missionaries convert confirmed today. i guess i forgot to mention that they had a baptism yesterday haha. there have been 5 baptisms since ive been in Porty. its not really a whole lot. in 2014 we hope to be baptizing weekly. work in progress haha. we also had a lesson with brother Grant, the branch clerk, on making sure that he is super friendly to anyone at church that he doesnt know and/or who is investigating. he was all for it cause he loves the friendship part of the church a lot. This transfer is gonna be a good one!

Jamaica is just awesome! there is no other place that i wanna be right now than here! the mission has changed my life and easily saved it as well! i feel like im a mini Gordon B Hinkley by gaining the testimony that i have out here on my mission! The church is true and there is no denying it! i so hope that everyone goes on a mission! not only do you change other peoples lives, buy you change your own! you go out a teenager, but you come back a full grown adult!

Love You All!,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Week 14

Hey Everyone!

No more Patios for you guys haha. i forgot that Google is something that you guys can use while i cant. just not too fair haha. 

I also found out that if you guys wanna write to me more then you can go to dearelder.com and email from there. just leave your email on the letter and i can email you back. there are still a few friends that i wanna hear from lol.

i forgot my journal today so i dont know what day i am on. im also too lazy to go back through my email and find out there haha.

Monday
Today was a pretty good day. i dont remember much of what happened cause its been a week but i know that it was good lol. I do remember that we had a lesson with Kenroy and the Campbell family. We had a lesson about the Law of Chastity with Kenroy. we tried to not have Kadeen there on purpose but she ended up walking in. oh well! the lesson was great and not as awkward as we thought. he was accepting to it and ready to live it. it is awesome to see how much he has changed than from when we first met him in September at Kadeens baptism. The Campbell family we had a lesson on keeping the sabbath. always a weird lesson for me to teach since everyone in Pleasant Grove knows that i would go down to Harts each sunday and buy Mtn. Dew haha. But ive come to a new understanding of it. they were kinda stubborn on closing down their shop on sundays cause they are new. hopefully they will close the shop on sundays here soon. they said they want to be established before they do but they have been open longer than ive been here. they arent that new haha. they come to it at some point tho. i can see it.

Tuesday
It was a very interesting day today. we saw Kadeen in the morning and tried to have a Q&A with her about the law of chastity. i guess that her and one of her friends have been really obsessed with that lately. it didnt work. all of them were answered by the other missionaries last night haha. oh well. but the rest of the day blew out completely. it didnt surprise us too much cause we didnt have any plans. last week i said that we were gonna go to Kingston. ya... that didnt happen. we had no plans and came up with everything last night. we had great plans to work with a lot of the members but most of them werent home or were busy. out last and only other lesson was with Sister Blake. we did the new way of working with members. it worked! we got like 6 or 7 names from it so we just told her that we should have a family home evening to get all the names super fast! she was all for it! we are planning on doing that on friday. and there are going to be people from both sides of Porty so it should be great for all 4 of us missionaries!

Wednesday
this is the first time that i will ever talk about what we did in district meeting haha. today we learned how we can better use the book of mormon. i basically learned that we need to start treating it like a book of scripture instead of something that we just give people. it is the evidence of everything that we teach and it needs to be treated like it. we are gonna start having more lessons where we just read. not just when they dont read, just in general have the lessons. the only lesson we had today after that was with Brother Banton. to quote the joke with me and dad a bit... "he was still pissed". he completely lied to my face about church. meaning that he started to go to a different church. he is too disappointed that he didnt get baptized when he wanted. all it is telling us is that he really wasnt ready. we had a .... collective dropping. he dropped us by going other places and we dropped him cause he was no longer interested at all. sucks cause he was our top investigator. now we have almost no one to teach.

Thursday
Elder Dalley and I decided that we need more people to teach. We are gonna treat ourselves like we are a white wash companionship. white wash is a term missionaries use that means that both missionaries are new to an area. its starting from scratch essentially. so we are talking with everyone. but we had 2 lessons today. and they were both with Kadeen. the first one was a coordination lesson for the lesson we were having with Kenroy that night so it didnt count towards any of our numbers. we prepared her for a lesson about Scripture study. our last lesson of the day with her was at the time we were going to teach Kenroy. he didnt show up and she was our backup. we taught her about missionary work and faith cause she hasnt been as excited about doing missionary work right now. she brought her friend who used to investigate the church. i say used to cause the other missionaries just dropped her like a week ago. the lesson kinda went toward her after a while. it was super spiirtual! more than i have ever felt on my mission so far! we still taught Kadeen that that was how we knew that someone was prepared. her friend was asking really sincere questions. one day she will be baptized. it will just be a while.

Friday
During super planning we decided inorder to get more investigators then we need to contact the formers. we made a plan to do that tomorrow so that we still have time for everything today. if we get extra time then we will do it then too. we had a lesson with president james about branch council. he is the second counselor but he is acting as branch prez cause the actual one is in the states for surgery. we are going to have the 2nd branch council since ive been here on sunday. we will be getting the branch mission plan all figured out. the next lesson i can remember was with Kenroy. we had the lesson about scripture study. it went super well! he is really studying the Book of Mormon! more than i ever did before i left on my mission. it is super cool! the spirit has really changed him a lot. he is probably the most influenced by the spirit that i have ever seen. he is at the point that he wants to know with a burning passion that what we teach is true. him and kadeen hang out a lot and they always talk about prophets and other things that we teach. fellowshipping is awesome!!

Saturday
today was a super weird day. we still dont have a lot of people to teach so we mostly just go with recent converts and less actives. we taught ashagaye today as the only number lesson. i feel super bad for her. she now cant come to church until she is 18 cause her mom will not allow her to. she wants to come but just cant. we taught her about scripture study. it shifted into a CPR lesson where we told her that the best way to get her back to church with permission was for her to pray everyday, read everyday, and also attend seminary if possible. we had a lesson with Brother Forrester today too. he is the person that feeds us on Sundays. he is gonna help us with a lesson with Kenroy tomorrow. it should be awesome cause he used to be a missionary himself!

Sunday
Church was good today. all i can really say about it haha. Kenroy was the only investigator that we had at chuch. that will change here soon haha. Our lesson with him went super well tho! it was on the Word of Wisdom. Brother Forrester killed it! he did a great job at making friends with him super fast! they basically talked about the word of wisdom the whole time! it should help Kenroy get some friends in the church who arent women haha. we also had the other missionaries convert confirmed today. i guess i forgot to mention that they had a baptism yesterday haha. there have been 5 baptisms since ive been in Porty. its not really a whole lot. in 2014 we hope to be baptizing weekly. work in progress haha. we also had a lesson with brother Grant, the branch clerk, on making sure that he is super friendly to anyone at church that he doesnt know and/or who is investigating. he was all for it cause he loves the friendship part of the church a lot. This transfer is gonna be a good one!

Jamaica is just awesome! there is no other place that i wanna be right now than here! the mission has changed my life and easily saved it as well! i feel like im a mini Gordon B Hinkley by gaining the testimony that i have out here on my mission! The church is true and there is no denying it! i so hope that everyone goes on a mission! not only do you change other peoples lives, buy you change your own! you go out a teenager, but you come back a full grown adult!

Love You All!,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Week 13

Hey Everyone!

So i thought that Patios would be harder to understand. Maybe its the fact that im using well known scriptures haha. nice job dad on the fast response to it. this weeks scripture is:

"Bot di Uoli Spirit tek kanchuol a Stiivn. Im faasn im yai op iina di skai an si Gad brait brait lait iina evn an Jiizas tan op a Gad rait-an-said."

hopefully i will remember it next week haha

Day 97 Monday

Today i am still feeling pretty sick. the good thing is that i went to bed super early last night to try and feel better. the bad thing is that it didnt really help too much. at first i thought that it did cause i felt ok but once like noon came around, i felt like crap again. i even got worse. we also found out that Zone Conference is gonna be this friday instead of next week like originally planned. Its way sick tho cause our Area President, Elder Anderson from the 2nd Quorum of the 70 is going to come and speak with us. not all of the missionaries are going to be going to Kingston however. the missionaries in my Zone and the Hopton/Mandeville zone will be going to Savannah La Mar. thats like an hour south of Montego Bay. Driving for that day is gonna be crazy! We have to stay in the Mo Bay Zone Leaders house the night before too. to add to that our weekly planning is being moved to thrusday as well. all in all, we get like 2 hours of teaching on thursday and none on friday. its gonna be another interesting week haha.

Day 98 Tuesday

still feeling sick today. not really anything that i cant handle so ill just have to tough it out haha. by biking is still slower tho. that really sucks cause i hate when people go slow and i feel like im extra slow now. so frustrating. the biggest lesson we had today was with Brother Banton. it was.... interesting. we went through the baptismal interview questions and found that there was a really big concern for them. we had to push back his day. to quote what me and dad would say all the time, "he was pissed." we tried our best to explain to him that it had to be done but he didnt want any of it. he almost gave back his Book of Mormon, True to the Faith, and Gospel Principles book. luckily he didnt haha. he was also so pissed that he crossed his name out in the Book of Mormon. we are going to have a lesson with him tomorrow and explain more of the why. it was an answer to our prayers tho. we didnt know if he was ready to be baptized or not and the concern along with the temper tantrum answered it. The Spirit works in mysterious ways haha.

Day 99 Wednesday

Today was Transfer Day and Elder Hall was the only one leaving. So in order to follow mission rules, we were in a Tri-panionship with Elder Strickland today. at first we were all really worried about it cause tri-panionships arent the most effective thing and it doesnt help us with the whole CIA and FBI crap that we get. But it did end up being a very inspired thing. The first half of the day we spent over on Elder Stricklands side of Port Antonio. They have some really cool people over there! the last half of the day was spent over on our side or Porty. we went and saw Brother Banton as a big lesson of course. Elder Strickland was quite excited for that one haha. once we got there we learned a lot ourselves. Elder Strickland really set the stage for how the lesson needed to go and he taught us that we need to be more blunt when we are teaching. we need to tell it how it is instead of beating around the bush and being apologetic about it all. Brother Banton thought that we were in a conspiracy to piss him off but i think we got it cleared up that we are not.. thankfully, he is still an investigator. we need to teach him a lot more tho.

Day 100! Thursday

today was full of nothing. the only things we did was our Super Planning, teach for 2 hours, and then drive to Mo Bay. we did find out that one of our investigators was almost shot so that was kinda a weird part of the day. trust me tho, Portland is not a big crime place. its very rare for crime to really be here. the main places for that are Downtown Kingston, Spanish Town, and Montego Bay. i think that i will serve all of those places someday haha :) but we left late again to get to Mo Bay so getting to Ochi was super stressful. the new elder there is Elder Adams. he is from Ephriam, Utah. he says that he knows Cole cause he was in a class of his. he was also in the band from what he told me. He is also in Elder Faumui ward. elder faumui is the AP who played for Cole in high school. once we left Ochi tho it was a really fast ride to Mo Bay. we had to be there by 9pm and we didnt leave ochi until like 7:30 when its like 2 1/2 or 3 hours to get to Mo Bay from Ochi. lets just say that everyone told me to drive super aggressive and fast. if i did driving like that back in the States, i would be arrested for many many many many counts of reckless driving. thank heavens i have a "white man pass" down here haha. we did get to Mo Bay on time so thats good news. tomorrow we have to go to Sav so that should be fun.

Day 101 Friday

Today was super awesome! Elder Anderson came and talked to us in Sav. he mostly just talked about how we need to teach people more about the covenants they are making. those are what people need to know cause its what they promise to God and what helps keep them in the church. hopefully that made sense cause what i have in my journal makes no sense at all haha. but it was super inspirational! Sister Brown, President Brown, and the APs did a great job when they spoke to us! President Brown also found out just how bad we get the CIA/FBI crap. he has now told us to not wear sunglasses out in public. not really a big deal for me haha. i never wear those things now. but because Sav is on the complete opposite side of the island than Porty, driving back was nuts! we left Sav at 3 and didnt get back to Porty until 9:30! right on time tho haha. i was super tired cause i was driving the entire time! its supposed to be Elder Dalley who drives but this week he did not get good sleeps so he had me drive so that it would be safer. the ride form Ochi to Porty was really tough tho. i think i almost went to sleep haha. thank heavens for music!

Day 102 Saturday

Today was a really tough day! the drive from Sav yesterday took a lot of my energy so i was dead tired the whole day. i really dont remember much of what happened. all i know is that we had a pretty good lesson with Brother James about getting Branch Council started up again. thats something that we have only had one time since i have been here. hopefully we can start to have it every week now. we also had a lesson with Kenroy. he is doing awesome! he seems to be a lot more excited about everything. we just need to get him to church more. we have to push back his day cause he is not coming to church tomorrow. he is going to be in Kingston to visit a childhood friend of his. ....i hate pushing days back.....

Day 103 Sunday

only thing different about this sunday than all the others is we had a lot of the crazy people walk into church today. no we didnt teach them cause they all left before chruch was over. Jamaica has just got some really interesting people on the street haha. but we did find out a lot of plans we have for this next week. on tuesday elder dalley and i have to go down to Kingston cause the Pajero we have has not been serviced in 3 years! its like 100,000km over the last service! thats when President Hendricks was first on the island! hopefully our time down there will be fast. we need more teaching time haha. the last 3 weeks or so with that just has not been in our favor. all the meetings weve had have killed it haha

well thats all i have for this week
Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Week 12

Whagwan Gad Piknis! (whats up children of God) well shout out to bishop haha. he got the verse right first. it was Matthew 26:75 for those who didnt understand it. Patios is super crazy. i dont know how on earth people understand it or speak it. ive heard that its more of a spoken language than a written so not even the people down here can understand half of what the bible is saying. here is another verse tho "Ef unu lov mi fi chuu, unu gweehn du aal a wa mi tel unu fi du" Day 90 Monday P-Day is just the same old thing every week to be honest. i am the only one that pays someone to wash my clothes so everyone else spends the whole day washing while i sit around. it was nice tho cause i decided to call elders henderson, rammell, phippin, and martin. they are some of the missionaries that i met in the MTC. everyone is doing super good from what i can tell. it kinda sucks tho that im basically the only one from my MTC group who does not go to Spanish Town every Sunday for choir practice. its a bit too hard with the distance that Porty is to Spain. oh well tho haha. we finally saw stephany today tho. its been like a month since we last saw her. at this point we dont know if she wants to keep investigating the church but we have our hopes high!  Day 91 Tuesday The main thing that happened today is we drove to Ochi so that we could spend the night there before zone meeting tomorrow. the suckish part is that i forgot my suit case back in Porty so i have to recycle all of my clothes. never again will i do that haha. im probably just going to feel super disgusting tomorrow. the way over was super funny. all of the missionaries in ochi wanted us to bring them some Bulla. we got passed by the sister missionaries at one point and they started to text us saying that we should just give them the bulla right then. they asked us to pull over. we didnt. after that they said to just pass it through the window. we didnt. they got tired of it so they just passed us again and went home. super funny! once we got to ochi we had an elders party by having a butt load of ice cream and root beer! thats really it tho for the day. teaching was nothing huge for now but it will be! Day 92 Wednesday so i had to drive into mo bay. lets just say that that is not fun. driving in mo bay is like driving on the Vegas Strip at night. except its like that all day! zone conference was super good tho! it really made me thing of all the small things that i need to improve on. other than that we had no teaching at all today. we stopped at a Pizza Hut in Mo Bay for lunch. i think its one of 2 on the island. we didnt really get out of town until like 3 15 or so. i also had to drive back to Porty. but we had to drop elder dalley and elder beck off in st anns bay for a baptismal interview. we didnt get back until like 8 that night so we just planned for thursday and ate. Day 93 Thursday today was sick! we got a lot done! it was the first time in a while that we were one appointment away from our goals. all we needed was an RCLA. its a good way to end the transfer tho. we had a lesson with chantel today. the lesson was super good but i realized that we need to have someone else come be her friend. hopefully we will be able to think of someone haha. i did get rebuked a bit during the lesson by ashagaye. it was funny cause she was mad that i still dont understand Patios very well. she thinks its a language but its not. some people down here think it is haha. chantel agreed with me that its not one. and she is jamaican haha. Day 94 Friday i had to wake up early today so i could get to ochi to pick up elder dalley. we all decided that the best way to make the trade off back was for me and elder martin to leave Porty by 6am so we could get to ochi by 8 and then me and elder dalley could get back to porty by 10 so we could super plan. that didnt happen haha. we got back to porty at like 11 cause i had to have breakfast in ochi and we arrived there i bit late too. we met a guy named courtney today. he had walked into the lesson we had with chantel yesterday and wanted a pamphlet and a time to come back. he is super cool but im not sure how prepared he is. the next lesson we will decide if he is a new investigator. Day 95 Saturday today was the most unproductive morning in the mission since 6 weeks ago. Transfer call day. its unproductive cause we all call each other to see where everyone is going. i am staying here in Port Antonio with elder dalley. yupp we are going to be together for the 3rd transfer in a row. elder strickland is staying here but elder hall is going to mo bay. now the only time we get to see him is when we go for zone meeting or zone conference. i was surprised with elder dalley staying cause of the whole loreen situation that we have. we are going to talk to president brown about that haha. random thing: elder henderson, my MTC comp, is now comps with elder Sawyer norman. kinda strange how two people that i know are now comps. the transfers are way inspired tho. president brown went to the temple to figure them out. its also the transfer before Jamaica gets a stake! Day 96 Sunday today was the first day that i felt sick. i had a lot of soreness and a headache from Satan. church was super funny tho. one of the members cracked an unintentional joke and we just laughed our heads off. we all love the guy. he is just a little crazy in his old age haha. we had enough lessons that we came super close to our goals. we started the day quite a bit under and ended super close. so even tho we had almost no teaching time this week we still got a lot of work done. our zone also had 11 baptisms this week! the previous record was 10 in a week. and that was for the whole mission! i cant imagine what spanish town or kingston did this week if we had 11! the work in jamaica is moving forward and its going fast! Thats all for this week everyone! Love, Elder Kurt Meacham

Pictures!