Week 5

Whagwan everyone?! if emails could have feelings then this one would be crying a lot. it rained freakin hard on our way to the internet cafe so i am completely soaked right now! Jamaican weather is absolutely crazy! all the missionaries are super stoked for conference to be this week! we've been looking forward to this for a while. me and elder dalley are gonna try to use a lot of talks for the next 2 weeks with our investigators. Following the Prophet is gonna be the main lesson we teach so that it leads into them coming to Conference. i think that this is gonna be the first time ever that i will see all 5 sessions. ive always been asleep for the morning ones so it will be really cool to see them all for the first time! its also weird to think that the first transfer is almost over. ill still be here in port antonio with elder dalley for the next transfer but the time really has flown by! i want 2 years to seem like that but at the same time i really dont cause i love it down here!

Day 41 monday

Pday defiantly helped out a lot. after not feeling the spirit on sunday i had it back for today. Good news and bad news. Good News: i finally got to play basketball!!! ive been waiting so long for this! Elder Gordon (native missionary) and i went to the other side of town and played. Bad news: i found out that my MTC name, Elder Baller, is gone. i sucked it up so bad. it was like i was playing church ball again haha. it has been a month since ive played but it was still super bad. hopefully over the next few weeks ill have that back. We'll be going in the mornings so waking up at 5aminstead of 6:30 is gonna be interesting. I also got a very good quote in my emails that really helped out my day. "Dont Give Up, Dont Ever Give Up" - Jimmy V. probably my favorite quote of all time. its simple, blunt, and very loving. 

Day 42 tuesday

We got quite a bit of new investigators today! we had a goal to get 4 new ones and we got 4! they werent the 4 that we were planning on but who cares about that! 4 people are interested in the gospel! the family is still really screwed up down here. people just get married in their hearts cause some of them are Rasta, and its against their religion i guess. law of Chastity is the "make or break" lesson i guess. we taught a couple who has been together for 8 years but is not married. the guy didnt keep the commitment to read the restoration pamphlet but the girl did. she read it like 4 times. she even did the questions. she felt bad that she couldnt finsh them tho. she didnt have a book of mormon haha. she softly rebuked the guy too for not reading. at the beginning of the lesson we asked her if she would be at church and she wasnt all too sure about it. but by the end of the lesson she was saying that she would for sure be there! SO SICK! we also met a guy named Roshane. he said that he has made some mistakes in his life that he regrets and he just wants to turn his life over to God. he saw the other missionaries one day and talked to them. he lives in our area so they gave us the info. he is a SUPER chill guy! he even brought his brother who didnt seem to interested at first but was very interested by the end. 

Day 43 Wednesday

District meeting was not a disaster this time. Ocho Rios just came here on the taxi so it worked out well. we watched the driving and bicycle safety videos. THEY ARE SUPER CHEESY!! its more of a comedy thing than anything else! but after that we did another trade off. Elder Dalley went to Ocho Rios with elder beck so i stayed in Port Antonio with Elder martin. it was kinda scary cause it was my first time having to really take charge in all of the lessons. Kadeen, the baptism we had on the 14th, came teaching with us all day too so she can get ready for a mission in a year. the day was super good. we had some crazy spiritual lessons and the people really seemed receptive to them. it was an amazing confidence boost for me.

day 44 Thursday

today was super slow. me and elder martin had to go to Ochi to get Elder Dalley so most of our morning was spent doing that. the fare to get there isnt cheap either. its like $600 to get there and $600 to get back by just taxi. if we took the 6am bus then we coulda saved a bill or so but we needed a longer trade off. elder dalley had to cover for me on the way back cause i ran out of cash so i will owe him on monday. we didnt have a lot of lessons cause we didnt get back until like 5pm. we had our dinner appointment and then a lesson next door to that. just to say, Driving in Jamaica really sucks. "come what may and [deal with] it" i guess haha

day 45 friday

During the middle of our weekly planning President Brown stopped by. he came and gave us some super sick advice. basically what he said was that we needed to have less lessons and more baptisms. we need to be sure that the lessons we do have are perfect and we get fellowshipping involved big time. we need to spend more time getting someone to come with us and prepping them by telling them how they will help that person and what parts they will have in the lesson. it really hit hard cause we have been struggling with that. we are really gonna rethink what we're doing and apply that stuff. We tried it that night with a home teaching thing. no one in the branch does their home teaching so its lead to a lot of inactive members i bet. we prepped someone on what was going to happen and then went over to the less actives house. i dont know why we had to be there cause he taught the whole lesson by himself! it was so awesome!

Day 46 Saturday

Days are really starting to get super short. there is almost no time in the day or night for me to do things that i need to do, like laundry or writing in my journal. its quite depressing to be honest. scheduling is very hard too. i guess that anytime after 7pm in jamaica is considered late so our dinner is at 8pm. and then most of the investigators we have live like an hour bike ride away. we cover the eastern side of the Portland parish (state) so its hard to get out there. ive yet to be past Blue Bay but the travel time is nuts. we try to get several appointments out there but its still way crazy. we decided that we are going to switch off every day where we go. one day we will be in prospect and anchovy near the church. and the other day we will go out to Drapers and san san to teach the people out there. hopefully that will all work out. we have been finding a lot of people out there so it should work wonders. it probably wont be long until we just start going out there everyday

day 47 sunday

so for some reason ive been having really weird dreams lately. the past few nights i have been having dreams about some of the girls back home. ya its kinda creepin me out too. everyone in my house says that im gonna have a "Black Dream" tho. i guess that is where you dream that everyone back home is black. im not sure which one is creepier. hopefully the dreams will stop or make sense after a while. we really only had one lesson today. Stephanie, she lives next to our thursday dinnerappointment, finally came to church so we had a lesson with her right after. we taught her the Word of Wisdom. it doesnt look like she has any problems with it. just her baby-husband. its still been raining a lot! i wish i knew where that Tropical Storm/Hurricane was!!! Jamaican rain is just crazy! it can be 100% sunny but rain like crap at the same time! 

Everyone - dont forget to Email any questions you have! i love to answer them! my email iskurtley.meacham@myldsmail.net

Well thats all that i got for this week. Hopefully more will happen for this next week haha

Love,

Elder Kurt Meacham