Week 39

hey everyone whats up?

this week...

Monday 5-19-14

so the only lesson that we had today was with Chayanne. it was a really interesting lesson. she has a short attention span and we didnt really teach all that simple. i thought it was a lot of information that was put out. we brought britteny along as well and we are hoping to get some other people to come along as well so that she can have some major fellowship. its super weird teaching teens haha. i can interact with them on a normal basis. but teaching them is a struggle for me since i have a certain way of doing missionary work. its a process to change it into several ways but its coming along haha. next time our lesson with chayanne is gonna be a lot more fun for her. pday was pretty relaxing tho. mostly just sat around until it was time to teach haha. best days ever if you know what i mean.

Tuesday 5-20-14

today we had ian come with us. ian is a member of the branch who is planning on going on his mission in november. he is a really great guy. he knows what he is doing cause he has been going out with the missionaries for over a year now. it was interesting getting the bike tho. we had to go clear up to the church and borrow it from another missionary. after a bit of the day went by, we tried to see soshana. she ended up dropping us cause she got confused. she started to ask other churches about us and it just confused her. nice job asking chevy about ford there. we respected her opinion tho to do some research so we gave her a Book of Mormon and told her to read it to find out if we were true. after that we went back up to the church. we had a discussion with a member, Kim, about JD and what we can do to help him. she gave us a few things that we can do. its something that we defiantly are going to do. after that, the day was basically done.

Wednesday 5-21-14

we had the weirdest lesson with christinea today. it was all about going to the branch president to talk with him. she had some concerns about going so we kinda just got those concerns resolved. it was by far the strangest lesson that i have ever done on my mission i think. the next lesson that we had was with Chayanne. this time we brought Britteny and Sherefah with us. it was a really good lesson. we just let Sherefah and Britteny take care of the teaching. it was just a small follow up on the restoration. they did a really good job. but the rest of our day was taken up with bring them home as well.

Thursday 5-22-14

well we went and saw sister dacosta today. i think she is crazy now. she somehow compared a mango to the bible. i really dont know what else to say to that. she may just be a crazy lady now tho haha. we also went and saw chris today. i didnt really know what to teach him. we ended up talking about mission stuff tho. he has looked up to missionaries in the past so he wants to serve himself. we mostly just answered a bunch of questions that he had. we also saw a new guy named orrett smalls. lets just say that he is not a very small guy at all. he is pretty jacked. we mostly just explained what we do as missionaries. they are 7th day as well so they kinda got into the whole Sabbath deal. its gonna be fun to teach them haha.

Friday 5-23-14

today we did almost no teaching. it was labor day and people down here take that pretty serious. so we did labor in the morning instead of weekly planning. dont worry tho. we had permission. we cleaned out a gully a bit. ill send some photos about it. then we did our super planning. then we went out and picked the McCallas up and Britteny for a lesson with Chayanne. the lesson was really good today. it was very simple about the Book of Mormon. britteny and the mccallas did another great job with teaching the whole thing. its gonna be a common thing that we do. we also had a very short lesson with the campbells cause we had to get the mccallas home again. never thought that taking people home would be such a chunk of time haha.

Saturday 5-24-14

today we saw a guy named ricky. he is super cool. we met him while playing basketball. he is pretty confused on the godhead, meaning that he doesnt really know if God is there or not. he is way interested in what we have to say tho. i think that we got him at the perfect time. i am really looking forward to teaching him. we also went out and played basketball again this week. its so much fun! my elder baller status from the MTC is defiantly back haha! the guys here are starting to give me no space whatsoever. its kinda annoying but funny at the same time haha. i look forward to that every week. its such a nice thing to do on "endurance day" we also went back to the campbells and had a very good lesson on gratitude as well. they are really starting to get into the spirit of missionary work as well. they want to start to invite their friends over. its so awesome! :D

Sunday 5-25-14

the church is starting to have a power outage a lot now. the power went out for like the 5th time since i have been here. its kinda annoying haha. hopefully it doesnt happen during stake conference when elder holland comes haha. but today the main thing we did was spend time at the campbell home again. they wanted to bring a friend over today so while brother campbell was getting them, we kinda prepped sister campbell on what was going to happen. well brother campbell was very late so we made a quick check up on nakeitha. she was in a lot better mood today to say the least. then we went back over to the campbells house to teach their friend. it was a pretty good lesson. mostly just us talking about what we do. another first lesson haha.

so thats the week. we did find a lot of new people which is really good. hopefully we can keep that up so that we dont run out of people to teach. i never want that to happen again haha.

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
John 3:16

Week 38

Wappen?

this week was pretty eventful to say the least.

Monday 5-12-14

So today we fixed our bikes for most of the day. bike safety has been a big thing in the mission since elder martin was hit a while back so i finally decided to get my bike..... ok half my bike...... fixed. i just got some new brakes on my bike. my old ones basically did not work. my tire is still retarded but im gonna leave that until it just rips completely haha. its lasted me the last 9 months so im gonna see how long that it really can last me haha. this should be fun. but i also had a dentist appointment today. i had a cavity in my tooth (i bet you guys can figure out why....... lots of bubla haha) so i had to get that fixed before it got way worse. it was pretty good tho. i was in and out of the dentist within 30 minutes. the lady was on the job for like 40 years so i didnt feel too scared. the big stick in the office had me worried tho haha ;) JK. there was no stick. but i kinda wish she did have one in there haha :D after that we went over to the McCalla house. we kinda overstayed our visit tho. oh well. they ended up feeding us and they want to feed us next week too. kinda surprises me but im good with it :) being fed by members helps me to save some money during the week haha. after that we started a tradeoff. elder layton is the district leader so he came into our area with me since i am the only person who knows it right now.

Tuesday 5-13-14

today we were super productive. maybe a little too productive tho. i think we ended up seeing all but like 2 of our investigators today. the morning was a little rough tho. we had a full morning but we went and saw a lot of old people. thats not a bad thing. but its harder for them to come to church as well. it was sister edwards, dacosta, and brother passley. they are all a ton of fun to be around but its kinda hard when they are basically our morning appointments. after lunch tho we saw a lot of investigators. first we saw Theana. she still isnt doing anything but we are really trying to build her faith so that she will do something. elder layton and i just bore our testimonys about the church and the Book of Mormon. im not really sure what more we can do than that. i think the next time we see her we will be teaching her the restoration. we didnt have too much time today. we kinda stalled her so that she would just sit with us haha. next we went and saw Gary and Nicole. we read a little bit in the book of mormon with them, just some chapters that we assigned them that they had not read yet. we then committed them to pray about the restoration. gary said that he believed it. but he still needs to pray to be honest. hopefully he will start to act on the things that we are teaching him. i really dont want to drop this family. after that we went and saw Soshana. she is super prepared! she really wants to turn her life "back" to God. we kinda just went over the Joseph Smith story and how church works. she is really interested in it. we just need her to come to church.... we'll get there tho.

Wednesday 5-14-14

Believe it or not, we didnt have district meeting today. we are actually having zone conference on thrusday instead. today was just our 2nd full day of proselyting in a row. thats never fun really. but it was ok. the first thing we did was stop and talk with JD for a bit. not really any doctrine was taught. we just wanted to stop by and see how he was. it looked like he had been down the past little bit so i just wanted to stop by and let him know that we are there for him. we did a lot of back and forth stuff for our cleaning lady as well so our morning was pretty packed with all of that stuff. after lunch we saw a new investigator. her name is Tiffany. she used to study with the Jehovah Witness but didnt really agree with their doctrine. she is looking for the truth and is really interested in what we have to teach. we just went over our purpose as missionaries and told her our expectation and got her expectations of us. it was a pretty good lesson. im looking forward to teaching her haha. then we went over and had a really good lesson with Chrsitinea. i think it was one of the best lessons that we have had with her yet. it will be very fun to continue helping her progress toward going to the temple.

Thursday 5-15-14

today was Zone conference over in Kingston. it was crazy to get over there. our bus was pulled over, like all buses, and was stopped for like 45 minutes. we didnt walk into the chapel in Kingston until like right before the meeting started. it was kinda a weird meeting for me too. Elder Dalley, my trainer, goes home this transfer so it was one of the last times that i will get to see him. but zone conference was super good. there was so much stuff said. one topic that stood out to me is the topic of patience. it something that i am going to be working on through the rest of my mission. the main topic of the whole thing tho was making a good first impression and then keeping that impression when we teach people. it was a very interesting concept. i thought back to something that an english teacher told me, "first impressions take 30 seconds to make, and 3 weeks/months to change". really goes to show you how important it is to make a good first impression. we are really going to be focused on that now. afterwards we went to a place that i have not been in like 10 months. WENDYS!!!!!! it was so good to be having that food again. i wish that i was in Kingston more so that i could go to places like that! the only thing we have here is KFC, Tastees, Juicis, and Pizza Hut/Dominos. but anyways. we didnt even get to teach for the whole day at all. we got back at like 7pm and had to go over to the Branch Mission Leader for a meeting. only then did we find out that the meeting was cancelled and the other missionaries didnt tell us. we ended up having to walk home. that kinda ticked me off to say the least. but really, that was our entire day.

Friday 5-16-14

today was kinda just a normal friday for us. we had the cottage meeting, had a great meeting with the campbells and all that stuff. the main thing that was different today was we had a lesson with Tiffany again. we wanted to go over the restoration but all of her questions led us to going into the Book of Mormon. she is super interested in it. we gave her the introduction page and the testimonys to read. then she is gonna start flipping through it and see what it is all about haha. i think you all know what that means here soon :)

Saturday 5-17-14

today we started out with service. christinea wanted to hang out with us so we took her around too. well, we couldnt find any service to do so we just chopped her yard. it was starting to get pretty long and with the 3 of us, it didnt take too long. only like 2 hours to get most of it done. one day we will go back and get the rest of it haha. after that we went and saw the McCalla family again. well actually it was just Sherefah but still. she opened up to us a lot. she told us some things that she felt pretty guilty for. its nothing bad. it just sounded a lot like me of when i was at home. its interesting how people out here realize what they are doing a lot sooner than me. i didnt realize till i was out here and they get to see it when they are 13 or so. lucky them i guess. but it rained for the rest of the day so we ended up spending the rest of the day in the house. no campbells tonight. darn it!

Sunday 5-18-14

i better tell you guys who is coming down to dedicate the stake here soon. so on June 7th and 8th we will have.......drumroll please............ ELDER HOLLAND FROM THE QUORUM OF THE 12 APOSTLES!!!!!!! he will be down her to dedicate the stake then and everyone is super stoked out of their minds!!! im dont think that he will have any meeting for the missionaries but we will get to see him live. the sad part, only missionaries in the stake boundaries get to see it and only the missionaries in spanish town, old harbour, linstead, and portmore get to be there live for it. everyone in Kingston has got to go to the kingston chapel to watch it from a live feed. hopefully i am not emergency transferred before then! i might just call and say no if i am tho haha. i want to be here so bad! but today was pretty good. we finally got to see Kayann. all it took was us going over there to see Britteny before Kayanns visiting teachers came over haha. hopefully she will be active with people like that coming to see her. we kinda just sat and listened to what they had to say. we also had a really good lesson with the campbells, as always haha. we watched the John Tanner story with them and talked about consecration. we also had a really good lesson with brother cardoza. he hasnt been to church a whole lot and president britton, the branch president here, wants us to really get him active. him and brother passley will be more of a focus for us now.

so thats my week. it was pretty eventful when i go back and look haha. i didnt think there was so much stuff but i guess that there was. im just super excited for the stake to come here! all the missionaries are super excited for it. its gonna be quite change for us. now we will have to start to listen to 2 people, the mission president, and the stake president haha

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
2 Nephi 31:19-21

Week 37

Hey Everyone!

this week was very heck-tic. with transfers going on and us having to move into a new house, there wasnt too much work done. i will do my best to keep the week entertaining for you tho haha.

Monday 5-5-14

So today was a relaxing Pday again. we had to start to get some stuff ready to move, cause for some dumb reason we are moving on tuesday instead of today. oh well i guess. but other than that it was just very relaxing. once we went out and starting teaching, we first went over to the Campbells home. we were prepping Brother Campbell to come teaching with us to Paul and Soshana the very next hour. it was pretty good. brother campbell knew his stuff really well. the bad part, when we went over to paul and soshana, paul had just gotten home from work and was dead asleep when he came to the door. we rescheduled for tomorrow. brother campbell is cool with it as well haha. then elder martin and i went up to the mccalla family so that he could say goodbye to them since he is going to be in sav on wednesday. as always, the mccalla family is awesome. we talked with them for a bit and had a short thought with them.

Tuesday 5-6-14

today we didnt do much cause we were moving to a new house. the one we had was very small and didnt fit us the best. not sure why we didnt move yesterday tho. might have been more effective. we didnt really end up seeing anyone. we did go over and see Chayanae tho. we just stopped by real fast cause we had to get somewhere. we asked her about church and she said that she really loves it and feels good when she comes. she said that she was going to come on sunday too (she didnt). next week we should be having a lesson with her tho.

Wednesday 5-7-14

transfers were today. i didnt go to the meeting so i was with elder layton and elder tuala for a bit. we tried to see people, but it didnt work out too well haha. even everal kicked us out of his house. thats how i knew that it was not going to be the best day haha. but elder martin did leave for sav today so now i am with Elder Carter and Elder Farb. most of what we did once i got them was go around and introduce them to the members. the members we went and saw were Nakeitha, Christinea, and the McCallas. so far each one of them really like those guys so this transfer is going to be quite good i think haha.

Thursday 5-8-14

we finally had our interviews with president brown today. they seemed a bit short tho. he normally goes pretty long from what i have heard but he only went like 30 minutes today. before tho we had to ride in the rain. that was the craziest storm that i have seen down here. no joke, there was one stretch that i couldnt even look at the road because the rain was in my eyes and i couldnt see anything. im not really sure how we got to the church safely haha. we got there and pres brown just kinda laughed at us. we ended up being there for a few hours. the other good news, i was productive on the piano a bit haha. i learned the first line to "if you could hie to kolob" in like 15 minutes. the rest of the song, no sir. first line is all my brain can handle haha. the other thing we did today tho is we went home teaching with brother blake again. i think the branch needs to get him a new companion cause it looks like the branch is going with us so that they dont have to prepare a lesson. im not really too sure tho.

Friday 5-9-14

all of the lessons today were still introducing elders carter and farb to the members. we did have a really good lesson with britteny tho. last time we went to see her we committed her to reading everyday. she hadnt done that too much haha. so we retaught the lesson, with some other points of course, and gave her a sticky note so that she could keep the commitment better. i think she is going to do it now haha. we also went over to the Campbell family, as usual haha. today we talked about grace. it was actually really good. there was so much that everyone wanted to say that we are going to go over it again the next time we go there. we didnt get to stay for long but next time it will be really good haha.

Saturday 5-10-14

the very first thing we did today was go and have a lesson with Nakeitha and give her a blessing. there are some things that she is going through right now and she had been wanting a blessing for a long time. we finally gave her one through all of our forgetting.... oops :-l ..... ill have to do better at remembering that haha. but the lesson was really good as well. we talked about the holy ghost and what/how we feel when he is with us. it was a lesson that i myself learned from. then we went and saw chris and had a super good lesson with him. it looks like he is gonna start to take church a lot more serious now. he needs to as well. i gave him a really good tie haha. later in the night we had a lesson with paul, despite the power being out haha. the campbells were going to join us but having the power out didnt really help our cause haha. we could only teach the first half of the restoration tho. next time we are just going to go back over it. but paul is getting hard to meet with to. he always goes out when we show up. we may have to get soshana more involved in everything. she seems a lot more interested than him, but he is still willing to listen.

Sunday 5-11-14

happy mothers day everyone! haha. so church was pretty good today. we had brother cardoza come to church! it was the first time he had been there since ive been here so that was super cool! the best lesson of the day was when we went over to the campbells home and talked more about grace. we ended up going into the atonement and how it is merciful unto justice (something like that haha. bad grammar i think). sister campbell said something that got my mind (or the spirit to tell me) on Alma 34:15-16. so i had sister campbell read it. she only got through the first verse of it cause she and her husband liked it so much that they went on about it for the next 20-30 minutes haha. i really felt the spirit in that lesson. and it wasnt just a little feeling. it really was the "burning of the bosom" that it talks about in D&C 9:8. i love going over to that house so much. i always learn so much when i go there and i always feel the spirit, no matter how big or small the feeling is.

so thats really the week. it was also raining all week and it flooded one part of our area. we still rode through it haha. there should be some photos at the bottom to show you just how deep that it got haha. i wish i could send the video home but its way to long.

but as always i really do love being out here in jamaica. it truly is the best thing that i have ever done. i cant wait to really put the things i have learned out here into my life after the mission. i know the gospel is true. i know that without a shadow of a doubt.

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
Alma 34:15-16

Week 36

hey. everyone...... wappn?

this week has been kinda weird haha. it was a long week but we got a lot done. elder martin and i got 6 new investigators for us to teach. but the sad part is..... elder martin will be going to Savannah La-Mar with Elder Nelson, the current AP, for the next transfer. so i will be getting a new comp.

Monday 4-28-14

today was pretty interesting. our first lesson was with Chris. we taught him about the Plan of Salvation because it fit in well with what we had been teaching him the last week. we have been having some really good lessons with him. he said that he is gonna start to save up his lunch money so that he can come to church. he also told us that right now he is leaning towards serving a mission! he is only 16 so he has a few years to prepare but he is also inactive. before anything can happen we need to get him to come to church on a consistent basis. he is well on his way tho. we will have to work with his mom so that she can get him to church and also so that she will come to church too. then we went over to the McCalla house and talked with Sherefah. we didnt really end up sharing too much doctrine... oops... we just really built more trust with her. then her boyfriend decided to call. we told her to invite him to church but she wouldnt do it. so i took the phone and did 2 things. 1. invited him to church. and 2. did sherefahs PR work with him haha. sometimes you can use these things to your advantage haha. but pday was super relaxing again. its so nice to just have a day to relax haha.

Tuesday 4-29-14

our morning today was super awesome! we had a full morning and we saw everyone that we planned to see! i cant even remember the last time that that happened for us. i think it happened when elder norman was here but i dont remember haha. one of those lessons was a new investigator named chynn. right now she isnt doing anything and we havent been able to see her other than today. we also saw another new investigator. her name is Theana. she is sister baldeos niece. she is way cool! within the first 20 minutes of doing a "how to begin teaching" lesson, we built a really good relationship with her. the lesson ended up going a little long because of how good we were doing in gaining trust haha. then later in the day we played basketball for finding again. we try to do this like once or twice a week cause there is a lot of priesthood that comes to it haha. tonight we played when it was a bit dark but it was still fun. elder martin and i were just raining threes from everywhere in the dark haha. the guys there are really starting to trust us. we are going to be sure to get some appointments to teach some of them real soon.

Wednesday 4-30-14

Today we had zone meeting. it was a super good zone meeting in my eyes. the main topic of it was to teach people and not lessons and to ask inspired questions. the funny part of the day was through all of our appointments. everyone is still checking up on how elder norman is doing! it kinda makes me laugh a bit just cause he has been gone for 2 weeks. but he was very well liked in the branch so i cant blame the people too much. its members and investigators that are asking. they all just loved him haha. we met some more new investigators today. this time it was a family in Innswood, the scheme we live in. their names are Paul and Soshana. they are super cool! when we met them they said that they wanted to start going back to church so we asked them if we could share about what our church believes. they said yes and so we went over tonight and just talked about some expectation and also had a mini part of the restoration. next time we will teach them the whole thing haha. we are going to get brother campbell in on that one. they are way close and about the same age as well so it works out perfectly. we also had a lesson with Christinea. it was a fun time really. it was a bit hard for her cause she had a different missionary there other than elder norman so she was a little uncomfortable. but she will get used to my new comps when they come (look on saturday for who they are).

Thursday 5-1-14

wow its already may?! time sure does fly by. its way hard to believe that i am almost at my 9 month mark. today there were only really 2 big things that happened. first off we went over to Theana and got a dagger in the heart. she told us that she wont ever be coming to church because if she does then her parents are going to kick her out of the house. they dont really like the church, at all! we are going to continue to work on her and to build her faith so that one day she can either move out, or not be scared to go and her parents will let her stay there. its gonna be a little while before it happens but only time will tell and we will be consistent with it. then i got a call from elder norman later in the day. he sounds really good. he said that he is hoping to come back out here soon. it just will depend on the results of some tests. i have high hopes tho. maybe well get to finish out the companionship haha.

Friday 5-2-14

We had to give one of the parts in our area up today. the ZLs dont have a lot of members to teach right now so they took our spot called Whitewater. we dont have a lot of members there but i think that they will do a better job down there. the main thing that happened today was something that really vexed me up. we had an appointment with Raheem to teach him at a cottage meeting we go to each week. well he showed up to it, said hi, and then had to leave for a minute to do something. well we waited for like 30 minutes. then we called him. he suddenly became very busy. that really got me vexed up! we arent really going to set anymore appointments with him. if he comes again then we will tell him that we are willing to teach him but he has to make the time. one more blown appointment like that and im done with it to be honest. then we went over to the campbells and talked to them about humility. man do i love going to the campbells. every time i go there i learn so much myself. they are a great family. and on sunday there is some news for that family ;)

Saturday 5-3-14

so first things first. TRANSFER CALLS! with elder martin leaving to go to sav, i will be getting Elder Farb, from California, AND Elder Carter, from Pleasant Grove! that makes my last 2 transfer call comps from my high school! i guess the Lord just wants me to serve with everyone from my high school haha. well thats two down and only one to go! but as for lessons today, we had one with a teenager named Chayanae (pronounced like the capital of Wyoming). she came to church last week without us expecting it so we went over and had a how to begin teaching lesson with her and set some expectations.  she is way cool. the main concern we have is we just need to get permission from their guardian to baptize them. once we have that i think that we will be in the clear for them to get baptized. then we had another lesson with the campbells today. it was super revelatory for us. not really going to go into detail about it cause it was about a member but they gave us some really good advice about what we can do to help this member. again, such an awesome family!

Sunday 5-4-14

today elder martin and i stayed in cause he had a headache and we have to be cautious with them because of the accident he had before. but the biggest news of the day BROTHER CAMPBELL IS THE NEW 1ST COUNCILOR IN THE BRANCH PRESIDENCY!!!!! i was not expecting that announcement at all! he is only a recent convert of 4 months and he is already in the branch presidency! im so excited for him! he is going to be a future bishop when the stake comes and him and his wife get sealed! its moment like that on the mission when you really see what its all about. there are people out there who need to be in the church with certain callings. its just up to the members and missionaries to find them together.

so thats the week. it was a pretty long week for elder martin and i but it was a good week at the same time. i really do love the mission. seeing brother campbell get called to that position just made my heart swell with joy! this gospel is so true and i cant wait to get home and to share it with even more people!

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
1 Nephi 8:30