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!