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

Week 35

whappen?

this week has been very interesting for me. i know i usually give out what happened a bit during the week in this part right here, but this time ill just mention it later

Tuesday 4-22-14

man its weird to be putting Tuesday first and not Monday haha. but today was a really good down. we did a lot of work in Elder Layton and Tuala's area but there was still some really good stuff that happened for us. we went over to Chris today. we talked to him a little about the Book of Mormon. are main thing was to get him to read. it was a super spiritual lesson. at the end of it he told us that he was going to be doing the Book of Mormon challenge. he is just going to mark everything that stands out to him. its the same thing that i am doing right now. almost everything is marked up in mine. its amazing just how much stuff really is in the Book of Mormon. we also went over to the McCalla house and had a lesson with Sherefah. she wanted us to bring fruit to the lesson. it ended up being super weird and pointless to bring it haha. she wanted to know the meaning behind 1 Nephi 8 so we read that with her and explained it all. as for the fruit, we just ate it haha. but pday was super relaxing today. i really just sat on my bed and did nothing. one of the nicest pdays of all time haha.

Wednesday 4-23-14

today was pretty good haha. only 2 super big things happened today. we went back to chris for one. the church was on a show down here called "Religious Hard Talks" and they had something about how our doctrine teaches us that we can become Gods (Romans 8:17 for example). he wanted us to come over and have a lesson on how we can do that. it was super cool. we shared a bunch of scriptures on how we are like God first (Gen 1:26 - dominion; Acts 17:29 some examples) chris said that he wanted to be sure that he was gonna be a God so he wants to start coming to church again. we just need to help him do that now haha. We also went over to Sister Dacosta. she is just a ton of fu to go to. she is always super happy when we go there. we always just share a short thought with her and leave. it makes her day to be honest.

Thursday 4-24-14

So today was a really interesting day for me. i got a call from President Brown in the morning. he told me that Elder Norman was so sick that his condition was forcing him to go home for a bit. that sure did make my heart drop. it seems like the doctors down here couldnt find out what was wrong with him so they shipped him back to the states for some more tests. hopefully he should be back in a few months. he is a great missionary and deserves to be back out here. Pres also told me that i would probably get a new comp tonight. i will get to who it is in a bit. so elder layton, tuala, and i went to terryann. that was a hard lesson. it seemed just to be very distracting. she was doing someones hair so i dont think that she really got much out of it. we then went over to sister blake and, of course, she fed us. she did sit down for us to have a lesson tho, for once haha. she said that she would come to church (she didnt still tho). it seemed like a good lesson haha. then at night i got my new comp. so does anyone remember the missionary down here that got hit by a car? it was just like a week or two into January. well, elder martin, the missionary, is back! and he is my new comp! with elder norman going home, it was really convenient, (or inspired. whatever you wanna say haha) for him to come and serve with me. him and i are super stoked to serve together. we came out of the MTC together and have been wanting to serve together ever since. the plan right now is that he will leave in a few weeks, when transfers come, but we hope that he will be here for at least one more transfer.

Friday 4-25-14

most of our day today was spent fixing up elder martins bike. with it being hit by a car, you can imagine how broken it was. it wasnt too bad tho. just the breaks need to be fixed. but it still took the bike guy like 2 hours to fix. that was not fun. Jamaicans dont seem to know how to fix bikes very well. maybe i shoulda learned when i was home...... oh well haha. but today was one of the best days that i have had on my mission. we saw the people in my area that i like the most. i think the funniest part of the day was when we went to the McCallas to introduce elder martin. Sherefah had a prank planned for it. we walked in and were so freaked out. even i was scared and i knew about it haha. it looked like some weird ritual was being preformed. they were laughing too hard to continue the prank tho. but today was just so much fun. we went back to the campbells as well and continued with knowledge. it was good as always haha.

Saturday 4-26-14

even tho elder martin and i have only been comps for a few days, we are having a ton of fun together. we love being comps so much. we get along great and act like the same two punks we were back in the MTC haha. today we got a lot of finding done. we didnt have any finding scheduled in but we had some free time, so we did some. we found a family in innswood that we want to teach and they said that they wanted to try to get back to going to church! they arent members of the church, well at least not yet haha. we also went back to the campbells and talked about faith. we have taught them so much now that i think we may be going over some topics again haha. we also did some basketball for finding again. that is a lot of fun to do. the guys who play are really starting to trust us. pretty soon here we will be asking them if we can share our beliefs with them. so excited!

Sunday 4-27-14

Church was pretty good today. sadly, i zoned out a few times cause i was just super tired. the mission does wonders to you haha. our main lesson today was with Gary and Nicole. we havent seen them in a few weeks so i was a little worried about what would happen. but we got there and they had read a bit from the Book of Mormon. we taught them a little more about it. it was a very inspired lesson. they didnt know too much but it looks like they will be reading it more. Gary says that he sees the similarities between it and the Bible to that got me pretty stoked up. but elder martin and i are really hoping that we stay together for a long time now! we absolutely love being companions! he is my bro and i love serving with him!

so that was kinda my week. everyone down here is also sending their prayers to elder norman. he was very well liked down here and that doesnt surprise me. members and investigators are always telling me to tell elder norman when i can that they are praying for him like crazy. it just goes to show you how important it is to establish a relationship with people and really become their friend

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
1 Nephi 5:20-22 (this is something i found in my studies that really told me how important it is to always have our scriptures on us at all times.)

Week 34

Hey everyone!

so i bet your wondering whats with the subject of the letter. well i will get to that later. but dont worry. im ok. but onto my week.....

Monday 4-14-14

Today was a pretty relaxing pday again. its so nice to have a day to just relax. its always like the highlight of everything haha. the main things that we did today were help brother blake with his home teaching. the church down here is trying to get home teaching up but sometimes its like back home, its looked at as a bother. people dont really have the motivation to do it and sometimes dont have the fare to do it. but brother blake has a bike and really wants to start doing it haha. we went over to sister baldeos house and had a lesson with her so that he could do his visits. then we went over to Kayann. that was a really hard lesson. she musta been having a bad day or something cause she was not doing anything. we would ask her a question and she just would not respond. it was super annoying. sometimes she will do that on a normal basis so i dont know what to think. sometimes pdays are really good teaching days but most of the time its not a good day to go out and teach. we also found out that pday is on tuesday next week cause of the easter holiday. thats why this letter is late. next week we should be good on a monday pday again. it was pretty bad knowing we had to have it a day later.

Tuesday 4-15-14

it was super tough to do things today. we had no motivation to do anything. elder norman and i were just super tired. we saw a couple of less active people, but i think that we both just zoned out during the lessons. i dont really even remember what happened. its also tough with lessons right now. all of the investigators we have can only see us on certain days. and those days are later on in the week. so really today we didnt have a lot of people to see at all. we did have a lesson with this one guy named Anthony. im not really sure if we can teach the guy. he grew up in new york but was kicked out of the USA for something. i think that he is still on parole, meaning that he cant even be baptized. he just had a lot of interesting questions for us. that guy has got some really interesting views as well. we will determine if we can really teach him or not, or if it is worth our time to teach him. during the evening i went on a tradeoff with Elder Tualatamalelagi. He is from Las Vegas. He normally just goes by Elder Tuala tho so dont worry about pronouncing the name correct haha. we had a good lesson with an investigator they have. we went over and started to talk about repentance. it was the first time we had talked about it. it was way cool tho cause the things that they were talking about just led right into it too.

Wednesday 4-16-14

today was another good district meeting as usual haha. we continued with the tradeoff too. we didnt trade back until the night so elder tuala and i still made some rounds in his area. well we saw a member and talked to her about missionary work. she is pretty excited to do it. the members in the branch here are really starting to get into missionary work. there are still some things that need to happen but its really starting to progress quite nicely. then our weekly cook shop saved the day again. we had a while before an appointment and were pretty hungry too. we went down there and had one of the best meals ever haha. nothing compared to cooking at home, but still some pretty dang good food. after that we didnt really have a lot of appointments. we went and saw a member tho. a friend of hers was going to come over so we could teach her but she flaked out. we decided to just talk with the member and get to know her. the good thing is that she was wanting to do her visiting teaching, but her comp didnt really do anything. i suggested that she take Nakeitha. she doesnt have a companion or assignment to do her VT so i thought that it would be perfect. plus it gives nakeitha some more stuff to do during the weeks of the month. they are about the same age as well so they should end up being really good friends.

Thursday 4-17-14

so im back with elder norman now. we realized today that we are starting to run out of people to see. one thing that we are going to try to do is get a referral from some members. we havent had a lot of those since ive been here so we are putting more of an emphasis on it. we went over to sister blake as well. and as usual, she fed us, and then kicked us out right after haha. she is one of those less actives that has caught on that we share a thought when we are done eating. she has started to kick us out in a very kind way now. one day we will get her to have some time to see us haha.

Friday 4-18-14

today was a pretty interesting day. we were going to have some interviews with president brown today. we also got pretty stoked for them cause we heard that Elder Holland from the Quorum of the 12 was on the island. we thought that he might be in our interviews as well. talk about scared excitement haha. but when we got to the church, in a taxi nonetheless, we found out that president had cancelled the interviews again. -_- that really didnt go to well haha. so we went back to the house to get our bikes and start the day. we met a less active named brother collins. he has been less active since i got on the island. he seems way cool and like he wants to come back to church. ive heard that there are some things that he needs to work out with the gospel so it should be fun helping him get through those trials. then we kinda didnt have too much to do for a bit. we found some guys playing some basketball in the streets by where we live so guess what we did. yupp. we tucked in the ties, pulled out the shirts, and got to playing! we are trying to use it as a finding idea. hopefully someone from there will want to hear what we have to say soon. then we went over to the campbells to talk about knowledge. brother campbell sure does have some knowledge about history. he went off for such a long time about it. its funny when he sees that he has gone off the topic a lot too. he will point out that weve gone off topic, and then continue on with what he was saying. its so funny haha! i always laugh whenever i go over there cause that family is just one of the best families i know of (behind my own of course ;) )

Saturday 4-19-14

today we did not do that much. first off in the morning we went and saw daniel and israel, some less active priesthood holders. they are way cool. we talked to them about agency and enduring to the end. they loved the lesson so much that they asked us real fast when we were going to come back. after that was when the day got to doing nothing. Elder Norman has been having some pain in his stomach since friday so we stayed in after that. well, resting up didnt help him. it got worse. we called sister brown and she said that we needed to go over to the doctors office. well we got there, and the doctor told us it was either his appendix or inflamed kidneys. he sent him over to the hospital in kingston. dont worry tho. from the updates i have had, it is neither of those. the doctors think that it is just a virus. he should be back here soon.

Sunday 4-20-14

well, light em up guys... haha just kidding. so with elder norman gone to kingston for a while, i am working with elder layton and elder tuala until further notice. probably only the next few days tho. our area are also going to be combined a bit. the numbers will be different still, but we will have to work in both of them till elder norman comes back.but today was really good with church. of course a lot of the members were asking where elder norman was. he seems to be really good friends with a lot of the members in the branch. we just told them that he was sick and had to stay in today. they all understood that enough haha. in my area we didnt have any appointments. elders layton and tuala had some things planned out already so we just went with their plans. it was mostly just having some family home evenings with member families. they shared a faith story. the story was way cool, even tho it was fake haha.

Monday 4-21-14

so for this pday we....... oh wait...........right......... haha today was a good day dont worry. to start off the day we went and chopped some yard for someone that elder layton and tuala are trying to teach. then after that we went to lunch with the ZLs to a members house. man was that a lot of food. i thought that i was going to be full for the next few days. i had a very hard time eating everything. ive normally been able to pack food since i got to jamaica but that was a struggle for me haha. the only lesson that we had in my area was with sister baldeo. we went over there and talked a little bit about missionary work. she is always giving us referrals when she has them, it was more of a keep going thing we were doing with her. we may have a new investigator from that as well. its her niece that lives just behind her. when i asked her if she wanted to learn more, she seemed pretty excited to meet with us. and there is great fellowship with sister baldeo right there as well as the McCalla girls who are right around her age and live way close. so this week shoudl be a pretty good one. im trying to get a lot of stuff scheduled so that we have a lot to do when elder norman comes back. hopefully it all works haha.

So this week was really interesting haha. elder norman should be ok. the doctors just think that he has a virus. they are saying that if they dont find anything wrong with him in some tests today, then we should be out by wednesday and back to work soon after. we will have to see how much he can do of course. but it should be good. its hard to think that after this saturday, transfer calls are the next saturday. i feel like ive been here for such a short time. i should be staying then tho. it would be nice to stay here for a super long time haha.

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
Introduction to the Book of Mormon, especially the last 2 paragraphs

Week 33

Whappn everyone!?

this week in jamaica was pretty good. Elder Norman and I hit 20 lessons! i havent had that my whole mission so i was pretty stoked. we even hit that on friday night. we didnt get too much done afterwards tho haha. it was a pretty relaxing week to tho. i feel like we really didnt do much but we still got a lot done. not really sure how that works but ill take it haha.

Monday 4-7-14

Today was a super relaxing P-Day. the people in the living scheme we are at have started to fix up some basketball hoops. once they are done we are going to start shooting in the mornings. right now they arent done and its too hot in the afternoons to go play. mostly what i do now is i watch 17 Miracles. its a good thing to do on a day where all i want to do is relax haha. once we went out teaching tho, we went over to Jay and talked to him about the Godhead. his beliefs are, of course, not what the church says it is. we started to "reason" with him about it. we ran out of time so we are going back tomorrow to continue on the subject. after that we went over to the Campbells house and finished up the topic of Womenhood. it was pretty funny to be honest. we just had them watch Elder Christoffersons talk from October 2013 Conference and then brother campbell made his family summarize what the talk said haha. after that we went over to Nakeithas house for dinner. and that was our day haha. pdays are always just super short with teaching. sometimes i wonder how effective they are. but oh well. gotta do what ya gotta do right

Tuesday 4-8-14

Today was just an interesting day. we saw a few members today. the main thing we did with them is follow up on conference. we asked if they had watched it or not and then just talked about their favorite talks, if they saw them, and ours whether or not they had seen it. Its amazing what conference can do for lessons for missionaries. the week before we teach about prophets, and the week after we just follow up on how everything was haha. later in the day elder norman and i were in a little bit of a hole. we had no one to go see and we still had like 90 minutes until our next appointment. plus, we were just super far from everyone. well we remembered one thing. we never scheduled in dinner for us. we were right by a cook shop we always go to so we just kinda thought, "well, now we're hungry" haha. we rode up there and ate. that cook shop just saved the day for us haha. then we went over to Jay again. this time the lesson did not go so well. the lesson got really contentious at the end. lets just say that i am never going to have "reason" for a lesson plan again. we need to always be sure to teach doctrine. we are going to give it a little while before we go back there. its not cause jay was mad, its cause we got super ticked....

Wednesday 4-9-14

i was very tired today haha. first we had district meeting at the church, which is like a 15 minute bike ride from our area. luckily we got a ride from the ZLs to it. ill get to why i said that in a bit. then we went back to our area and saw Brother Passley, the former Branch President from years ago. like clear back in the 80s. he is a little less active right now. we went down there and talked about Bishop Stevensons talk from conference. i always enjoy talking about that one. it really puts in you mind just how important this life really is. but he loved the lesson. we then had nothing else to do. all of our appointments blew out. so a couple of hours later. we called a former investigator from a while ago and saw her. but she was clear back up at the church! she lives in our area, but is mostly outside of it all the time. so we rode clear back up there, taught her a lesson that was mostly just seeing what she remembered and going over our purpose as missionaries, and then rode all the way back to our living scheme. in all, that lesson, with travel time, took us around 90 minutes to do. man was that hard haha. but then we had a good lesson with Christinea about knowledge. its interesting how knowledge is important in this life. and not just book smart stuff. just knowledge in everything. D&C 130:18-19 i think gives a really good explanation why.

Thursday 4-10-14

to give one word on how this day was: LONG! we did a lot of work tho. elder norman and i saw a lot of people over the course of our teaching hours. it didnt start off to well tho. we thought that we were going to be having some interviews with President Brown today. well we got in a taxi to go to the church, we really didnt want to bike haha, and then got a text from the APs. they said that something came up in the mission that pres had to go to so our interviews were going to have to be rescheduled. we had a big facepalm on that one haha. we told the driver to drop us off right where we were and then we just walked home. we werent too far but it still sucked having to walk home like that. then we had a lesson with an investigator later in the day. her name is Terryann. we are pretty excited to teach her cause its the first person that we have found in a long time. we taught her about the Godhead. she is still a little confused with it but we will get there one day with that haha. one other good thing with this week is that we are finding more people to teach. the bad thing is that most of them can only see us on certain days of the week so we cant really just go and check them all the time. but we are excited to have more people to teach and we wont complain about that haha. thats all for exciting things today sadly. man i may have pumped this week up too much haha ;)

Friday 4-11-14

i have realized one thing out here on a mission. i dont know what a weekend is anymore haha. or at least i dont know what one feels like. i always loved having a few days off to do things but now i dont even get that. i dont even get a full day haha. it just sounds kinda nice right now you know. but anyways today we hit the 20 lesson mark! of course it includes teaching recent converts and less actives but we still had 20 total lessons hit! out main lesson today was at a cottage meeting that a member holds every friday night. we usually dont get too many investigators there but today Raheem came and joined us. the thing that we talked about was, you guessed it, conference. sister wright is the one who planned the lesson tho so its ok haha. we talked about all of our favorite talks. its always way cool to see how something sticks out to someone so much more than it did to you. i guess thats why they never just go and throw down on the same subject. they all speak on different things haha. Raheem didnt quite understand a prophet so sister wright kinda explained that a bit (music to missionaries ears haha). he said that he was feeling way good inside with the whole thing so we are excited more to teach him haha. he is not the fastest learner so its taking a little longer with him but patience is key i guess. we also have started to play basketball in the mornings. i must say, it feels so good to play again haha. maybe this time i can get back my "Elder Baller" status haha

Saturday 4-12-14

Today was pretty good. we went back over to Terryann today and taught her about the Restoration. she was asking really good questions through the whole thing so that was super cool. we also asked her to be baptized when she finds that what we teach is true. she said she definitely wants to be baptized into the truth. we were pretty stoked with that comment haha. we tried to commit her to May 3rd. she said that she would think about it. cant really blame her with that haha. once she learns more i think it will be a better desire. we also found one more person that we can go teach. i guy named Anthony. he called us over and asked us the golden question, "why are there so many different churches and why are they all confusing?" we started answering his questions and gave him a Book of Mormon. he seems pretty interested to learn more. he said that he just wants to learn about God and Jesus Christ. he is "not a church person" tho so we will need to work on him coming to church at some point. for the lesson with the campbells tonight we just watched 17 miracles with them. it was a good time to just kinda take a break.

Sunday 4-13-14

so some really big news.... JAMAICA IS GOING TO HAVE ITS VERY FIRST STAKE!!!!!!!! the application for a stake got approved and the very first stake conference will be June 7th and 8th!!!! this has been expected for a long time, a little longer than i have been here, and now its actually happening!!!!!! everyone is super stoked!!! i cant wait for an apostle to come down here and dedicate it!! but other than that it was a typical sunday haha. it was fast sunday too for us. that was a little hard. fast sundays are always just a little bit longer than normal. they can get pretty hard to get through but i made it though it haha. appointments today were really hard. everyone just cancelled on us. the only appointment that we had today was with the Carter family. we went up there and just shared stuff from conference again. the carters are a way cool family. their children love us too haha. of course they are like 6, 5, and 3 but ill take it. they always try to play with us when we are over there. after that we just went in and had dinner cause we were starving.

so all in all this week was really good. the stake being approved was by far the best news of all time! im so excited that i get to be here first hand for the best church news to hit jamaica so far! the only thing that is ever going to beat the news of the stake is the news of when a temple comes here. right now its a little far from that but hopefully in the next 10 years it will be more than ready for a temple. i cant wait for STAKE CONFERENCE!!!! WHOOO!! haha

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
4 Nephi 1:11-18

Week 32

Hey Everyone!

this week was just super amazing! and the best part was that we got to spend the last part of it in conference! i have really come to love conference so much while out here on my mission. i am never going to miss another conference in my life. and i will never not take notes in it haha.

3-31-14 Monday

SO Pday was pretty.....ok today. we had to get me a new bike rim for my bike cause my other one is just sucking up really bad. it is tearing the valve stem on my tubes so i am spending too much on them. it ended up costing me close to $3000 just to get a new rim and tube. maybe ill just try to convince president brown that i need to have a car for the rest of my mission haha. the lessons we had today tho were pretty good. we helped one of the youts get ready for the temple trip (yout is not a typo, thats patois for youth). Britteny, the yout, is pretty excited for it. the problem that most youts in Jamaica have right now is finding names of their family. Jamaica is not the best at keeping records for families, that is if a family is there. marriage certificates are kinda rare here cause people dont get married. they just move in together and say they are married in their hearts. so stupid. really that was all the lessons we had. kinda a slow day haha.

4-1-14 Tuesday

well i tried to fix my bike today by myself. it didnt work out to well. i took off the wheel, and realized that i couldnt do it myself. so i had to go to the bike shop and have them fix the whole thing. which cost me another $1000 or so. i have now spent more money fixing that bike than it cost me to get the thing. at least i didnt spend $20,000 like some other missionaries do when they get here haha. i only spent the $7000. also, it rained so hard today! we got stuck at Nakeitha's during the storm for like 40 minutes! we then decided that we needed to ride home in the rain for the 300 yards. during the ride home i was soaked from head to toe! the water was clear up! major flood in our living scheme! it was so cool! every time that pedaled, my foot would go for a 6 inch swim on the down stroke haha! i so with that i had a video of it but i dont :( that night we also had a lesson with Gary and Nicole. its really hard to meet with them because of the work schedule that Gary has. luckily this week was a good week for him. we taught them the Plan of Salvation. Gary loved the spirit world in the aspect that people will get a fair chance if they have never heard of Jesus Christ before. so we had a really good lesson with them. we also went over and saw the Cardoza family. we had a lesson with them on happiness. Elder Norman has been having some funny questions so we used one of those for the topic of the lesson. they loved it a lot. the spirit was defiantly felt.

4-2-14 Wednesday

So today elder norman had his first district meeting. he did a really good job haha. we then went on a tradeoff. i went with Elder Layton and Elder Matthews into their area for the day. it was pretty good. it rained again tho. we did get to kick a frog right before it. that sure was fun. i will see if i can send a video of it. when it started raining we took shelter under what we thought was an abandoned house. but when i looked in the back it wasnt. there was a bed there and some cooking stuff. the guy eventually came home and told us that it was "criss" that we stayed there. so we stayed till the storm died out haha. we then had a really good lesson with one of their investigators about the Book of Mormon. i really felt the spirit in that lesson. then i had another incident with a Rasta man. he came up to us and i didnt understand anything he was saying cause it made no sense. i told him that i didnt understand. he then said that i didnt "overstand" (rastas put everything very optimistic). so i told him that i didnt overstand haha. then he went on again about some sorta crap. still couldnt understand the guy. he then asked me if i remembered what he had showed me. i said yes. so he asked me the same question. i said yes again. he then asked me AGAIN! i then told him no. the next thing he said was "alright, God Bless" and walked off. it was pretty funny haha

4-3-14 Thursday

Today was pretty good haha. first thing we did was have a lesson with Nakeitha. she wanted to know some deep doctrine. we didnt know a lot so i just went off of something that elder matthews has told me before haha. then i told her to go read "the king fellott sermon" by joseph smith. that thing has some really deep things.be prepared to have some questions if any of you read it. then we were fed by a less active member again, sister blake. she still needs to get to church haha. we will work on that. really thats all we did today. its not that we didnt do more, its just that thats all i have in my journal haha

4-4-14 Friday

today we did a lot of street contacting in a really nice scheme in our area. we got a couple of people to give us a return appointment, which is super exciting for us. we have been struggling with investigators to teach so anything that we can get with that is a major blessing. most people in other missions have a teaching pool of like 10 or 15, well lucky them. we have like 3. if that. but soon come we will be struggling for time to fit everyone in haha. we also saw Jay during the day. we were going to go over and drop him if he hadnt read from the Book of Mormon. but he ended up reading from it so we are not dropping him and we will continue to teach him haha.

4-5-14 Saturday

so i will just put anything to do with conference on today for sake of time and space haha

we spent the entire day at conference today! i just freaking love conference. i so wish that they would do a general conference more often! there is so much revelation there! my favorite talks were: Elders Holland, Scott, Zwick, Brother Ridd in priesthood, Uchtdorf, Eyring, Monson in priesthood, uchtdorf on sunday, bishop stevenson, and elder bednar. those talks are just super good. also, i love how Elder Ballard approved "Preach My Marriage". thats a joke we have in the spain west house haha. but its true what he said. follow up with everything. even dates haha :)

4-6-14 Sunday

so right after conference we went over to sister blake and got fed again. we were going to share a message with her but she said that she wanted to sleep haha. we couldnt really do much so we went down to Moniques house, a member who wants to go on a mission. she is way cool. we went there and just kinda shared our thoughts from general conference. it was a really good discussion. that was the end of our day tho. we didnt have anyone that we could go check so we just chilled at Nakeithas till like 9 when we had to go home. sometimes its good to just take a break from everything you know haha.

But ya that is my week. the best part of it by far was conference, despite how funny the rasta was on wednesday haha. i cant wait for the next conference. it feels like yesterday that i was in my first one. wo. time really has flown by. i guess its like Bishop Stevenson said, the clock is ticking on our 4 minutes. that is something to really think about. we dont have a lot of time. its not too late to repent but it soon may be. hope you all have a blessed week.

Love,
Elder Kurt Meacham

Scripture Thought
All of the Conference Talks that i mentioned haha :) they should be in bold