Week 41

hey everyone whats up?!

this week was just so amazing! as i have been going off about in the last 3 or 4 letters, ELDER HOLLAND CAME TO JAMAICA!!! AND THE FIRST STAKE EVER IN JAMAICA IS HERE!!!!!!!! this is something that everyone has been waiting for for so long! and its here! the church is growing and its gonna continue to grow! wo getting ahead of myself here...... back to the week...

Monday 6-2-14

So pday today was pretty stressing. we took a bike ride down a mountain today. we had the zone leaders drive us up to the top, which took us like 30-40 minutes, and then rode down the whole thing, which took like 15 minutes. its was fun but also a bit anti-climatic as well. it was pretty steep tho. we had to of been going close to 45-50 mph. we really had to get our brakes checked before it haha. it was a ton of fun tho. it did cause a bit of stress tho cause we got to emails way late, and then we had to bike over to the place that we shop for food. its like 2 different ends of down. that wasnt the funnest thing ever. but we got home in time to take a short rest. that felt pretty good haha. later in the day we taught Chayanne and Shelly. we had to different lessons for the same household haha. first we taught Chayanne the Plan of Salvation. or at least the last half of it. we had Britteny come with us for it since they are about the same age. she did a very good job. its so much easier to have a 14 year old explain something to a 13 year old haha. i still need to improve on that a lot but im getting better. then we took Britteny home and went and got JD to teach Shelly. that was a very good lesson. i didnt get any words in cause JD taught the whole thing! it was the sickest thing ever! that kid is still a fantastic missionary! he so needs to go back out on his mission. i dont care where he goes but anywhere is where that kid needs to be. he knew exactly what to do and how to do it. so cool!

Tuesday 6-3-14

to start off the day we saw Kayann, finally. one thing that we are doing during the week now is showing a lot of people a talk by Elder Holland to get them pumped up for stake conference. kayanns lesson was ok. she just didnt seem to pay a lot of attention to it really. thats a really hard thing to see. you prepare so hard for something and someone just doesnt care about it. i hate agency haha. now i know how God feels with us when we are like that to him. we did that with basically all of the lessons today. we saw a few more members, a couple were less active, and then went to see our investigator Christine. we did not show her any Elder Holland today tho. we needed to get done with the restoration and introduce the Book of Mormon to her. it was a really good lesson. she is very willing to come to church and listen to what we have to say. we tried to extend a day for her to be baptized but she wouldnt accept it yet. we will try again later tho haha.

Wednesday 6-4-14

this is where our week started to get interesting. the devil was playing a big hand today. it sucked but its what comes in with life and with a mission i guess. it did start off really good tho. we had a super good district meeting. the spirit was felt heavily and we were all very involved in it. then we had jennys. you cant go wrong with that haha. but after that is where it did start to go wrong. the first thing that we did was drop gary and nicole. they werent doing a lot of stuff so we told them that lessons with us wouldnt continue. nicole i guess has been saying a lot of stuff about us behind our backs to Christinea, her next door neighbor. christinea was pretty stressed out about it. we tried to take sherefah with us as well. the lesson with chayanne we had was kinda boring so she didnt have a lot of fun today. then we heard all this stuff with nicole and we just kinda thought, "man things just cant get any better than this". it was a hard day to say the least. but we went and saw christinea before the night was over to cheer her up and it ended up cheering us all up. we ended up sharing a talk from elder holland so that helped out so much with everything. things were just shoved in our face by satan today. it sucked but its what comes with the "job" haha.

Thursday 6-5-14

i have realized that being sick on the mission is like the worst thing ever. you cant go out and teach cause you dont feel like you have the spirit, but you cant stay inside cause you just feel so worthless. ive been sick since wednesday with something but ive been trying to tough it out. its not really too bad i just feel weak sometimes and a headache haha. nothing i cant get through. we started off the day doing service tho. we thought that it was gonna take us like 10 minutes, all we were doing was moving boxes at the church with the Salvation Army, but it ended up taking us like 3 hours! man that was long and my arm started hurting from it haha. the good thing is that we got free pizza from Pizza Hut at the end of it all haha. we didnt have to eat any of our food today cause sister blake also cooked for us. we also took around sherefah today again. we decided taht we needed to make it up to her for yesterday so we took her to sister blakes house as well. she defiantly had more fun today than the last time haha. we also had a lesson with Shelly. we showed her an Elder Holland talk, of course haha. she said taht she wouldnt be at church tho cause of a funeral that she was making a big deal out of. we respected that tho and sid alright. i so wish that she coulda showed up tho....

Friday 6-6-14

today, i am still sick...... i hate being sick. its not fun at all. we did have an alright day tho. we saw christine and showed her a talk from elder holland. she loved it and said that she really wanted to be at church this weekend. she said that she wouldnt make it to saturday but sunday for sure. that made us sad but it was what we were going to get haha. she is really coming a long ways tho. i just wish that we could teach her more stuff in a less amount of time. oh well. its worth it for a full conversion one day haha. then we went and saw sister blake and did the same thing. for some reason tho our lessons have been down this week. we really havent taught a lot of people like i feel like we have been in the past. hopefully that will change next week cause with stake conference, we still have time blown out haha.

Saturday 6-7-14

so stake conference was like the biggest thing today! it was such a great time. elder holland gave a very good talk about hastening the work when he got up. he shared a story of 3 men who went to the door of someone. the guy came out and saw them. it was his bishop, elders quorum president, and sunday school president. well the man had a cig in his hand. but it was in st. george clear back so everyone knew that he smoked. they all went in the house and just stood there. then the bishop just blurted out, "frank we are here to call you as a sunday school teacher!" after dabbing his cig out on the coffee table, used for coffee and not decor as elder holland put it, he said, "BUT I SMOKE?!"  the bishop then blurted out "FRANK I DONT CARE IF YOU SMOKE! THATS YOUR PROBLEM NOT OURS!" (we had a good kick from that. southern utah humor haha). frank then turned around and saw elder holland in a different room. this is clear back when elder holland was 10 so the man, frank, is his father. he then said that his dad got a revelation to him right then taht they were talking about elder hollands class. elder holland got very serious right here and said something like, "DONT YOU EVER! THINK THAT GOD IS NOT WORKING ON THOSE TYPES OF PEOPLE! "(cig smoker, coffee drinker, beer drinker)" HE IS WORKING ON THEM EVERYDAY!!!!" (that was super scary cause he went from joking around a bit to his rebuking face and tone. i thought that i was about to die haha but back to the story). his dad then asked when he wanted it done. then elder holland said this. "THERE WAS A SUDDEN CRASH IN OUR KITCHEN. MY MOTHER SAID THAT SHE DROPPED A POT. OH PLEASE! GIVE ME A BREAK! SHE PULLED THE WHOLE CUPBOARD DOWN!" (elder holland is a very funny guy haha) but then he let us think about how that is hastening the work. hastening the work doesnt always mean missionary work. it can go from family history work, to reactivation, to retention, to whatever. the lords work is everything. and it needs to be hastened. he also said a very cool quote that got me thinking. he was referring to those 3 people who came to his dad but he said "PEOPLE LIKE YOU, HAVE SAVED PEOPLE LIKE ME!" now just imagine that. this is a man who has seen Christ himself, and he is saying that an ordinary person like us has saved people who are like him. such a crazy quote but such a great one at the same time. its very true. you never know what is going to happen when you help just one person out. that generation or the ones that follow could be effected for the rest of time.

Sunday 6-8-14

well the stake is officially here! elder holland and elder cornish set up the first stake ever in Jamaica! this next generation of missionary work is here now. i cant wait to be doing all of this with a stake president as well. now i feel like all of those state side missionaries a bit haha. but the stake is only in Spanish Town, Kingston, Old Harbour, Linstead, and Portmore so i might get transferred out here soon haha. hopefully not tho. i wanna stay the rest of my mission in Spanish Town! another nice thing is that during the night i was able to get up to the church for a minute and see some of the youth. elder holland wanted to talk to them as well so we went up right at the end of that meeting to see some youth. i was able to see all the youth from Port Antonio that i was super tight with! man did that feel good! i miss home so much haha! Porty and Spanish Town are always gonna be my 2 favorite places of all time. there are no better places than them. i dont care what anyone else says about that haha. but it really does feel good to be here. its the best thing of all time.

so thats the week. it was pretty eventful if you ask me haha. but being out here is by far the best choice that i have ever made. there are people down here that i need to talk to and those people in turn need to talk to me so that they can teach me something. i will never regret the choice to come on a mission. this is the Lords work and nothing can stop it. the church is true. i may not have come out on a mission with a lot of knowledge, but i will come back with the best knowledge of all. and thats that i know this church is true without a shadow of a doubt. nothing could ever shake my faith in that. to put it as the Prophet Joseph Smith said Love You All, "the Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear; till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done."

Love You All,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
"The standard of Truth" from Joseph Smith Jr.